POT SMOKERS SHOULD ASK THEMSELVES A QUESTION IN WAKE OF KILLINGS

There are a couple of things about the RCMP grow-op ambush and murders
that are disturbing and need to be said.

First off, I need to make something clear.

I am not a pot smoker. I have never been a pot smoker. I never will be
a pot smoker.

The closest I have ever been to being stoned involved painkillers
after a head injury, a separated shoulder, or after having my wisdom
teeth chiseled and manually jackhammered out of my mouth by a sick and
cruel dentist.

But don't think I'm going high road on you. I'm not. Weed is just not
for me. I say no, and whether other people do or don't is their
business, not mine.

I try not to judge pot smokers. I have issues with protestors who get
stoned and throw bricks and paint at cops. When I worked in the U.S.,
some of our best graphic designers and creative people were fueled by
their daily "4-20". Whatever it takes.

So if you're a recreational user, hey, that's your thing. I was never
going to judge.

But after last week's horrific tragedy in Alberta, my first and
initial reaction was that it was time for all of the recreational
users out there who fuel the demand for this industry to take a good,
hard look in the mirror and ask yourself this one question:

Do you have blood on your hands?

So many people reacted in so many ways to these awful
murders.

I strongly disagreed with people who tried to use this tragedy as a
reason for why marijuana should be legalized. Would legalizing
marijuana end organized crime's involvement in grow-ops? No. As long
as there is a secondary or black market for marijuana or anything,
there will be organized crime involvement. If it can be sold, it will
be grown or stolen.

I believe that because I worked in the trading card industry for more
than a decade and was involved in having people arrested for forging
autographs, theft, fraud and more. Merchandise was stolen from trucks
regularly. Even the trucks were stolen. Many companies stopped selling
to some retail chains - I won't mention any names but a
non-unionized one comes to mind - because internal theft could not
be controlled. I worked at a hockey card show in Montreal in which the
show promoter, Jean-Guy Pichette, was shot in the middle of a crowded
room in front of all of us and robbed of the money he collected in
dealer table fees. Our industry also saw the remains of a sales
executive found in a burned car.

The fact that hockey cards, Pokemon cards, Tiger Woods autographs
and bobble head dolls were decriminalized didn't stop organized crime
putting its stamp on what should have been a fun and innocent business.

Personally, I don't think marijuana should be legalized. I am
terrified of people getting high and then getting behind the wheel of
a car. Our government has allowed the image of marijuana to become
trendy and hip. In fact, a recent survey in the daily media reported
that kids see tobacco as more dangerous than marijuana. Most say
marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol.

But what about taking both? People are always taking drugs and also
having a beer or a drink.

Marijuana has not been presented to young people as a dangerous drug
in the same way tobacco has. Instead, it is cool and accepted. How
surreal is it that peanut butter is seen as more of a threat at our
schools than dope is. This image has fueled recreational user demand,
because people think they aren't doing anything wrong by smoking up
and it's harmless. The user demand has fueled the opportunity for
grow-ops. A Toronto police officer said over the weekend that 90 per
cent of all grow-ops are controlled by organized crime. Saying that
recreational pot smokers are fueling organized crime is less of a
stretch than saying that legalizing pot will end organized crime's
involvement in grow-ops.

As it turned out, the killer of the RCMP officers was an evil person
who set up an ambush. He would have killed officers whether pot was
legal or not. It was a terrible tragedy. We should be focusing on the
four men tragically killed and their families and why this demented
whackjob killer was not dealt with earlier rather than fooling
ourselves into thinking that legalizing pot would eliminate
drug-related violence.

If you smoke pot, you likely disagree with me, and that's okay. I
expect it.

Again, I'm not judging you or trying to tell you what's right or wrong
and I'm not trying to convince you to agree with my opinion that pot
should remain illegal.

I'm just asking you a simple question, and it's your own answer to
yourself that counts, not what I think.

Do you have blood on your hands?