GROW OPS NOT THE ISSUE

Four young Mounties were killed last Thursday after Jim Roszko, a man
being investigated for a shed stocked with stolen auto parts and
marijuana plants, ambushed and shot them.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media decided right away to frame the
tragedy as a marijuana issue. The government barked about greater
penalties for those involved with grow ops, reconsidering
decriminalization of the drug and the link between casual smoking and
organized crime. Pot activists responded by saying legalization would
prevent altercations between police and growers.

Journalists lapped it up and, in echoing the government line, failed
in their responsibility to report critically.

The grow op angle was nothing more than a red herring. Were there no
marijuana, the incident would likely have unfolded the same--the
police originally went to the home to aid in the repossession of a
truck, and the discovery of stolen car parts and marijuana plants
aided in getting a search warrant. After the officers were killed, the
Edmonton auto parts unit was the first on the scene. As one columnist
pointed out, if the state is going to increase the penalties for
growing marijuana now, we should increase the penalties for car theft
too.

There are two real stories here, and neither has anything to do with
pot.

The first is the failings of the justice system to contain a
criminal--a violent, cop-hating, harassing, gun-happy pedophile--known
and feared in his community. Roszko reportedly shot at people to keep
them from crossing on to his property, stalked police officers and
sexually abused boys. RCMP officers said he even terrified the police
in Mayerthorpe. The man, who was prohibited from owning firearms, was
known to have a collection of unregistered guns (remember Alberta's
fierce opposition to the federal gun registry). He was given kid-glove
treatment in the community--the police and the public just stayed away.

The second story is that of dangerous people with severe mental issues
who seclude themselves as society turns a blind eye. Roszko was mostly
avoided or accommodated in the town of 1,600--this event should have
launched an investigation into mental health funding and operations in
Canada.

It took four days for discussion on these two issues to surface. On
Friday, RCMP commissioner Guiliano Zaccardelli called grow ops a
"plague on our society." On Monday, he recanted, calling his response
linking the murders to marijuana "inappropriate." Zaccardelli said
that he knew "full well that at that time [he] didn't have all the
information." Because of this knee-jerk reaction, newspapers from New
York to Sydney, Australia, led their coverage with the marijuana
angle. The RCMP admits this was a mistake, and now real reporting is
starting to come to light.

In no way are we advocating for grow ops. The fact is that the
anti-grow op legislation being advocated by the federal government has
absolutely nothing to do with this case.

Tougher penalties for grow ops--like a minimum sentence of four
years--will only deter so-called "mom and pop" growers, moving the
demand for the drug to organized crime groups with the resources and
motivation to defend their crops. A four-year sentence for growers
will increase the risk to police and do little to stem violence.

In fact, the head of the Vancouver police unit said on the weekend
that police don't face many armed people or booby traps during raids
on grow ops. "We have encountered a few knives inside. I can think of
only one or two reports of firearms, and those were hidden away, and
we found those in searches," he told the CBC.

Journalism should be looking at how Canada's mental health care system
failed to help or treat Roszko and at what went wrong in the judicial
system. Marijuana is not the issue here.