WE'VE BEEN 'SLANDERED,' POT USERS, GROWERS SAY

VANCOUVER -- B.C. marijuana advocates say they're being unfairly
vilified by the furor surrounding the killings of four RCMP officers
on a rural Alberta farm.

Marc Emery and Kirk Tousaw said the fact Mountie killer James Roszko
had a small marijuana grow operation on his property is no reason to
label all growers as police-hating, violent lunatics who must be
censured at every step.

"I'm shocked at how the marijuana community has been slandered by a
guy who is clearly mentally unhinged and grew up with guns his whole
life and in a Christian fundamentalist home," Emery said.

"It's the clamour of hatred out there to persecute the marijuana
people because of what happened to these cops."

Police in Mayerthorpe, Alta., first went to Roszko's home last
Wednesday with a court order to seize stolen auto parts.

While there, they discovered what a search warrant said were 20
marijuana plants.

They returned the next day -- the day of the killings -- with a
warrant to search for the drug outfit and seized 280 plants, $8,000
worth of growing equipment and a generator worth $30,000, the Edmonton
Journal has reported.

Constables Lionide Johnston, Brock Myrol, Peter Schiemann and Anthony
Gordon died after they were ambushed and shot by Roszko while guarding
a shed on his property in Rochfort Bridge, Alta. Roszko later killed
himself.

Tousaw, campaign manager for the B.C. Marijuana Party, said the
killings should prompt a re-evaluation of Canada's current policy of
drug prohibition.

"History is devoid of any examples of successful drug or alcohol
prohibitions," he said.

Instead, politicians should be looking at the real issue --
decriminalization and eventual legalization, said Emery.

"The bodies of these officers aren't even cold and they are being used
as a flashpoint to cause a lot of harsh conditions for what ends up
being hundreds of thousands of Canadians like me who grow pot and
smoke it," Emery said.

"Now, we are being demonized, we are the anti-Christ and it's all our
fault.

"We will be paying for this for months and years ahead in tougher
legislation and more abusive behavior by police officers toward us and
less access to politicians to explain to them that ending prohibition
could end all these problems.

"The appropriate response is to become more diligent in pursuing the
legalization option."