STRENGTHEN POT LAWS

We hope delegates to the national Liberal convention will resist the
urge to use this week's horrific events in Alberta as an excuse to
legalize marijuana in Canada.

They are going to be tempted to do just that by the party's youth wing
(no surprise there) as well as by former senator and onetime leader of
the Alberta Liberals Nick Taylor, who ought to know better.

Taylor argues that legalizing pot could prevent instances like the one
in Alberta where four RCMP officers were ambushed and murdered when
they went to investigate a marijuana grow operation.

Prohibition, whether for alcohol, tobacco or marijuana, doesn't work,
says Taylor. "I'm not saying that the four men would be alive if we
had legalized marijuana, but I suspect they might be."

With thinking like that we have to wonder whether Taylor himself has
been lighting up the odd toke.

This is no time to be making up policy on the fly.

Let's stand back from the tragedy and recognize that the drug business
is a massive criminal operation in Canada that needs to be dealt with.

Gangs convert homes, warehouses and farm fields into drug factories
that turn out product worth millions of dollars, and they are willing
to go to any lengths to protect them.

The answer to that isn't to legalize the product but to crank up
enforcement and penalties to either drive people out of the business
or lock them up. That means not only giving police forces the
resources they need to root out and arrest the criminals but also
judicial reforms to ensure that there are consequences to breaking the
law.

Penalties that see drug producers and dealers walk in the front door
and out the back of our jails have to be replaced with penalties that
fit the crime.

At least Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan is on the right track.
The minister says she'll consider tougher penalties for marijuana grow
operations and added that she and Justice Minister Irwin Cotler will
review their proposed marijuana decriminalization bill to see whether
it goes far enough in dealing with growers.

RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli went further, suggesting it's
time not just to crack down on grow ops, but also to re-examine the
idea of decriminalizing simple possession of small amounts of pot. "We
don't solve anything in society by legalizing things or by pretending
they're not harmful to society," Zaccardelli said.

We think Canada's top cop is bang on with that assessment and urge
rank-and-file Liberals to get behind him as well.