FED DRUG STRATEGY TAKES HEAT

Top Mountie Calls for Sentencing Reform

CALLING IT an "unprecedented and unspeakable" loss, RCMP Commissioner
Giuliano Zaccardelli said yesterday's massacre of four Mounties must
spark public debate on Canada's drug strategy. Large-scale marijuana
growing operations -- often booby-trapped and linked to organized
crime -- have become a "plague" on Canadian communities and have led
to "uncomprehensible" acts of violence, he said.

"The issue of grow ops is not a Ma and Pa industry," he
said.

"These are major, serious threats to our society and they are major,
serious threats to the men and women in the front line who have to
deal with them."

Zaccardelli wouldn't say if the Liberal government's proposed pot
decriminalization bill will prompt grow ops to flourish, but said he
hoped there will be more talk of sentencing reform for perpetrators in
the wake of the murders.

'Review and Rethink'

"Hopefully this type of a tragedy will make us review and rethink and
reflect and bring a perspective to some of these issues as Canadians,
because we don't want anybody killed or harmed over these kinds of
things," he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, whose Public Safety portfolio
oversees the RCMP, said the government is open to revamping the
decriminalization bill and is committed to ensuring police have
adequate tools to fight the "scourge" of grow ops.

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler is eager to entertain recommendations
from the committee studying the bill, she said.

McLellan stressed the government is upping the penalties for grow ops
to combat their "unacceptable growth."

"We are not in the business of legalizing marijuana. We are in the
business of putting in place a new penalty regime for small amounts of
marijuana," she said.

'Wake-Up Call'

But Liberal MP Dan McTeague, a vocal opponent of his government's push
to decriminalize pot, said yesterday's tragedy is a "wake-up call"
that the bill must be scrapped. "I think we need to look before we
leap now and take a sober second look at this legislation,
particularly as it relates to meaningless penalties on cracking down
on those who provide, make and manufacture the product," he said.

Last night Prime Minister Paul Martin issued a statement expressing
his condolences to the families of the fallen officers.

"Canadians are shocked by this brutality, and join me in condemning
the violent acts that brought about these deaths," he said.