Mayerthorpe

Mayerthorpe was home to the tragic death of four RCMP officers March 3, 2005. James Roszko gunned down the officers after they came to his farm to investigate his illegal activities. Roszko was running a "chop-shop" and a marijuana grow-op. It was a well-known fact in the community that Roszko was an extremely violent individual with an extensive criminal record and untreated mental illness.

In the days following this tragedy we had the predictable knee-jerk reactions. The calls for cracking down on grow-ops, more police and a "crackdown" on violent crime including mandatory minimum sentencing.

And we have the absolute asshats that take advantage of a grieving and shocked public to push their personal political agendas.

Colleen Myrol, the mother of one of the slain officers, made a statement that spoke to the whole country's grief, and our deep common desire to strike back for the loss of these four young men. "It is time that our government take a stand on evil," she said. "It is time to take our liberal-minded attitude to task. Prime Minister Paul Martin, we depend on you and we expect you to change the laws and give the courts real power."

Others, like Liberal MP Dan McTeague, were even more explicit. Pointing to a proposed marijuana bill currently before Parliament that would, among other things, decriminalize possession of small amounts of pot, he called for that legislation to be rewritten to include a minimum sentence of four years for those convicted of running marijuana grow ops. "This has gone too far," he said. "We have legislation that may have the unintended effect of increasing marijuana grow operations. I think it's now time for Parliament to target marijuana grow operations." Those sentiments were echoed by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Professional Police Association, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, among others.

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I know a simple way to eliminate grow-ops. Legalize marijuana and allow people to grow small amounts. Even allowing people to grow three plants to a household would have a significant impact on grow-ops. I would never buy another bag of weed if I could grow it myself without risking jail time and a criminal record. Another awesome idea is allowing full legalization and sale of a regulated product in the liquor store. Nobody would spend the time and money that is required to maintain a highly inefficient indoor grow-op in a legal market. Saskatchewan has very long days and a lot of sunshine. We could be known worldwide for high-quality marijuana if
any of our politicians had any courage. Instead we have Liberal MP's demanding that we piss away more of our tax dollars to impliment stratgies that have no impact on crime rates or drug use.

Targeting grow-ops sounds like a great idea to a lot of people that have been indoctrinated by the media and the school system to fear and loathe marijuana. After all, we aren't punishing small-time users, we are going after drug pushers. Except that small-time users aren't going to give up their weed. For those of us that think that a finely rolled joint of Jack Herer is the best way to end an exhausting day, shutting down grow-ops accomplishes nothing. As long as there are people like me that love the demon weed there are going to be people supplying it. For every grow-op you shut down, a new one starts up to take its' place. Cracking down on grow-ops attacks people like me.

Did Liberal MP Dan McTeague and company do their homework? Did they read the Senate Report? Obviously not or they wouldn't be pandering to the publics' fears in order to push their misguided agenda.

The needless deaths of the RCMP officers was a tragedy. James Roszko was a violent whackjob that should have been institutionalized and his own father was afraid of him. If marijuana was a legal and government regulated substance, Roszko would not have been growing it. The RCMP would not have conducted an illegal search of Rozsko's property. But he would still have had a chop-shop and he still would have been a violent cop-hater with a gun.

I hope one day I can run for office and educate people about the harm caused by the War on Some Drugs. I would like to be a politician that does not sell-out her morals or abuse the publics' fear and grief.

Luckily, some people came to their senses. What a relief!