Posted on 3/5/2005, 6:15:25 PM by Squawk 8888
Within hours of the horrific killing of four young RCMP officers by a rifle-toting lunatic on an Alberta pot farm, everyone from politicians to police and pundits was pointing fingers at the scourge of marijuana grow operations.
"The issue of grow ops is not a Ma and Pa industry," RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli told a news conference Thursday night.
"These are major serious threats to our society, and they are major serious threats to the men and women in the front line who have to deal with them."
Sadly, like most heinous crimes, the worst police massacre in our modern history is not so easily explained.
Indeed, far from bringing reason to a society's grief, chasing marijuana grow ops is to go looking in all the wrong places for the causes and culprits of this unspeakable tragedy.
There is no doubt the proliferation of pot farms, as Zaccardelli put it, is a spreading plague in our society.
In cities across the country, pot producers are setting up shop by the thousands, sometimes in warehouses, but mostly in residential homes in otherwise quiet, family neighbourhoods.
According to the latest estimates by Canadian law enforcement agencies, the total annual marijuana production in this country is hitting an astounding 2 billion grams, or something over $20 billion.
Little wonder it is an industry dominated by organized crime and other underworld elements steeped in violent law-breaking. As the latest RCMP criminal intelligence report states: "Home invasions, drug-rip-offs, burglaries, assaults and murders, are only a few examples of the dangers that are par for the course when dealing in drugs."
Treacherous as the marijuana industry may be, however, it had little to do with this week's horrendous bloodbath in a quonset hut in the Alberta countryside.
In this case, the culprit was a madman, not marijuana.
The real issue is why a well-known nutbar named James Roszko was still loose in society, not that he had pot plants growing in his garage.
It doesn't take a criminologist to know that Roszko was bound for horror -- the only question was when the end would come, and just how terrible it would be.
Just ask his own father.
"He is the devil," Roszko's dad told the Sun hours after the shootings. "He's been in trouble so many other times, I hate it. I don't want him as my son."
As the Sun's team of reporters on the scene this week discovered, Roszko was a reclusive freak with a rap sheet that should have sounded alarms throughout the criminal justice system.
Among other things, that lifetime of trouble included shooting at two people who ventured on his property in 1999; holding a gun to a neighbour's head; and enclosing his property in double-wire fences and what police described as "booby-traps."
Roszko did some prison time -- for raping a family member repeatedly over a six-year period.
"He's a nutcase, just insane," said one neighbour who was actually an acquaintance of Roszko for 13 years until "he had me on his couch in his house with a gun pointed at me."
But Roszko was not only "known to police," as they say in the official reports.
He was known to hate the police, and none more than the RCMP.
The questions are so obvious:
Why was this maniac not in captivity? Was there nothing at any stage in all of his run-ins with the law that tripped a light in someone's head enough to say, this man is a danger to society?
Why were two and then four young constables armed with nothing but handguns sent into a likely confrontation with a nut known to have guns, hate cops and be crazy enough to kill?
Confronted with precisely this question yesterday, an RCMP spokesman stated: "We have to treat people with respect. And while we have to be mindful of their past, if we see someone walking down the street that we've had a past history with, we wouldn't automatically pull out our guns. The situation has to be assessed and that will be part of our review and recommendations will be put forward."
Cold comfort for four dead police officers.
(((.)))
Four Mounties are dead.
Who was smoking the pot?
And if the Mounties are that relaxed how the Hell do they stay in the saddle?
Because in the Canadian politician's mind, incarceration for life for scumbags like this would be like American style justice. That would be a violation of his huiman rights and would not lead to his rehabilitation. Another reason I moved from Canada to Florida - to escape the lack of justice in Canada.
The problem isn't the Mounties, it's our courts. This guy was a convicted serial child rapist who never should have been let out.
I agree. I'm a conservative who doesn't smoke, drink alcoholic beverages, coffee and tea or take harmful drugs. Having said this, I believe all drugs should be legalized because of the ludicrousness of having some harmful addictive drugs as legal (i.e. tobacco, alcohol, coffee) while others are illegal (i.e. marijuana, cocaine, etc.).
The point is, why should one set of harmful addictive substances be legal while the other illegal? Why should people have the freedom to destroy their bodies by taking legal harmful addictive substances while prohibited from taking another?
As one who doesn't take ANY addictive substances of ANY kind, I would love to see all harmful addictive substances vanish from the earth. However, since they're here, the next best thing is to ensure people have the education, freedom and right to chose whether they are going to consume such substances without the government telling them which harmful product they can take and which they are prohibited from taking.
Will usage increase if all drugs are legalized? That has been proven in Europe to not be the case. Who exactly is going to start smoking crack if it's legalized? Not me, not my mom, not my friends. So, why the fear of legalization or decriminalization? People stupid enough to take harmful addictive substances are going to take them regardless of their legality.
After all, how many millions do tobacco and alcohol kill every year and how many do marijuana, cocaine and heroin kill?
Please don't take away my chocolate
Let me try and get this right.
The guy is a known wack job, has put guns in peoples faces before, the Mounties are aware of his background, yet they go for him with four men, who evidently are rather laid back enough about the detail that they wind up dead.
Did I get some of that right?
I'm not sure what a Slowpoke is but I am sure of one thing, If we quit buying Middle East Oil, we would put a serious dent in the pocketbooks of terrorism.
Pray tell ... how would socialists get any tax money?
Unfortunately, the Liberals will twist it around and blame the present criminalization of maryjane as the root cause for this tragedy. At the Liberals Covention now underway, they are debating decriminalization as we speak, using this sad incident as a result in support of thier policy. They fail to understand or accept that pot is just one link in a long chain of illicit drug use that is at the core of much moral decay.
Oxycontin and Vicodin are highly addictive, man-made, and legal. Marijuana, on the other hand, is from God, has possible benefits, and was grown by the Founders and was legal up until the 20th century.
A Slowpoke is a small nuclear reactor used mainly in ships and subs.
Even more unfortunately, their "solution" is a bad one no matter what side of the fence you're on. I favour full legalization, but I think the Liberal plan will only make things worse. It reduces the penalty for personal use but keeps the supply chain in criminal hands.
Haven't been to Amsterdam lately, have you?
I pot is from God, why are there no examples of His Son taking a toke in the Bible?
Much of the crime in North America stems from drug trafficking. If the Canadians legalize drugs, they will become the drug trafficking on ramp to the world.
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
"After all, how many millions do tobacco and alcohol kill every year and how many do marijuana, cocaine and heroin kill?"
Strange question to ask, given what just happened in Canada. Looks like marijuana just killed Four people who gave their lives to uphold Canadian laws and protect the people.
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
There is no mention of Jesus marrying, yet marriage is a sacrament!
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