OTTAWA EYES TOUGHER PENALTIES FOR POT FARMS

But Advocates for Legalizing Pot Say the Deaths Were Avoidable

Jenni Lee Campbell and Neco Cockburn Ottawa Citizen; With files from
Canadian Press and CanWest News Service

OTTAWA -- Canada's public safety minister says she'll consider tougher
penalties for marijuana growing operations, but advocates of
legalizing the drug say the deaths of four RCMP officers could have
been avoided.

Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan said she and Justice Minister
Irwin Cotler will review the proposed marijuana decriminalization bill.

The marijuana bill, reintroduced in November, will introduce softer
penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Possession of
up to 15 grams of pot would be punishable by a fine of $150 for adults
and $100 for minors.

However, penalties would be tougher for growers. Those caught with
more than three plants face up to five years in jail, or 18 months
plus a $25,000 fine. Anybody with more than 25 plants could face 10
years in jail, while the bill provides a maximum sentence of up to 14
years for operations with more than 50 plants.

"Clearly Minister Cotler and I will want to take a look at whether we
have the right resources being used in the right ways and whether we
have the right laws," said McLellan.

RCMP Commissioner Guiliano Zaccardelli said police can always use more
help to fight an escalating battle against pot producers.

"The issue of grow-ops is not a ma-and-pa industry as we've been
saying for a number of years. They are major, serious threats to our
society and they are major, serious threats to the men and women on
the front line who have to deal with them," he said.

"They are booby-trapped, they are high-risk issues and major,
organized crime in many cases is involved."

But many said prohibiting marijuana has encouraged an underground
economy run by criminals.

Nick Taylor, a former senator and one-time leader of the Liberals in
the province where the tragedy occurred, said the incident proves once
again that prohibition, whether for alcohol, tobacco or marijuana,
doesn't work.

"The way we've done it now is marijuana has become the exclusive
prerogative of the criminal element because there's such fantastic
profit in it," Taylor said in an interview. "I'm not saying that the
four men would be alive if we had legalized marijuana, but I suspect
they might be."

Neil Boyd, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University in
Burnaby, B.C. who specializes in drugs and violence, cautioned people
not to "draw too many inferences from this one horrific incident,"
because this type of violence couldn't have been expected, despite the
well-known risk of booby traps at some operations.

"Most people involved in the marijuana grow-op would never contemplate
killing four police officers or shooting at them. It doesn't advance
their interests. This is an abnormality," he said.

However, he admitted that the larger the clandestine operation and the
greater the profit at risk the higher the likelihood of violence. It's also
not unheard of to have people armed with knives, guns and baseball bats on
site to keep their illegal and lucrative product safe, said Boyd, whose 1991
book, High Society: Legal and Illegal Drugs in Canada, argued that Canada's
war on drugs wasn't working.

"We're in a kind of prohibition timeframe much like (notorious Chicago
gangster) Al Capone and alcohol," he said, adding without a regulatory
system in place to deal with marijuana, there is a potential for
violence "at the margins."

Blair Longley, leader of the Marijuana Party of Canada said while the
shootings are a tragedy, they are "pretty predictable."

"In the big picture, it's just a huge war, and this will never end
unless they legalize it," he said.

John Akpata, a freelance writer and radio show host who ran for the
Marijuana party in the last federal election, believes the deaths
could have been avoided.

"If marijuana didn't have criminal value, people wouldn't kill for
it," he said. "When's the last time police officers got murdered for
cigarettes? When's the last time police officers were murdered over a
case of beer?"

The tragedy could have been avoided, said Jack Cole, executive
director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a group of 2,000
police officers, prosecutors, judges and other law enforcement
officers who lobby for a system of drug regulation rather than
prohibition.

"You can't imagine how many police officers have died in 30 years
trying to fight this war," said Cole, who was a detective lieutenant
for 26 years with the New Jersey State Police. For 12 of those years,
he worked as an undercover narcotics officer.

He said officers want to do their job, but it's an impossible
job.

"It's the only crime around that the better the police are at
intercepting the drugs and arresting the dealers, the more money the
drugs are worth and the more likely people are to involve themselves
in selling the product," he said.

Last month, law enforcement leaders said they were becoming more
concerned about firearms and growing operations.

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BLOODSHED IN ALBERTA: HOW IT HAPPENED

- - RCMP officers arrive at the farm Wednesday to help serve a court
order. They find evidence of a marijuana-growing operation and stolen
goods.

- - Two junior officers are left at the farm overnight to stand
guard.

- - Two other officers arrive early Thursday morning and the four go
inside the Quonset hut.

- - At 9:15 a.m. two more members of the Edmonton RCMP auto theft unit
arrive. They hear gunshots inside the Quonset hut. One officer returns
fire, and they retreat to the road and call for back-up.

- - Four hours later, an RCMP tactical team storms the Quonset hut. They
find the bodies of the four officers and the gunman.