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Buzzby

Families Of Slain Mounties Want Tougher Laws
Canadian Press | Ottawa Citizen | 09/26/2005

OTTAWA -- The families of four RCMP officers slain in Mayerthorpe, Alta., last spring say similar tragedies could happen again unless the federal government gets tough on crime.

The families want tougher sentences for people who run marijuana grow operations.

They're also calling on the Liberal government to abandon its plan to decriminalize simple possession of pot and they want tougher parole criteria for violent criminals to keep them off the streets.

The demands were outlined by Don Schiemann, a Lutheran pastor whose son Peter was among the four officers gunned down by James Roszko, who killed himself after ambushing the Mounties at his farm.

The families say they'll make their proposals an issue in the next federal election.

Schiemann says if Ottawa doesn't act and more police officers die, their blood will be on the hands of federal politicians.

(BuzzNote: These people just don't get it! Tougher laws make cannabis more expensive. The fact that it's illegal and outrageously expensive is what makes people defend it with guns. Their sons didn't die because cannabis laws were too soft. It's because they were too tough. Any violence associated with marijuana stems from prohibition, not marijuana itself. As long as an ounce of an easy-to-grow weed sells for $200, people will jump at the chance to supply it. The riskier it becomes, the more ruthless will be the people who take the risk to supply it.)

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Tolerance4all

If I remember right. They were after this guy for stolen car parts and happened to find a few plants. This guy was known for violence. Also the four officers were rookies. Many thought that it was a command problem within the RCMP.

troublemaker_42

As buzzby pointed out, there is all kinds of things wrong behind the parent's rational. Marijuana WAS NOT the problem here. Assigning blame to a plant, in light of everything else that was WRONG with this case, is crazy. i understand the parent's are upset, and who wouldn't be,but they are focusing their rage in all the wrong places. This case had NOTHING to do with marijuana. The results would've likely been the same had no grow-op been discovered. This makes as much sense as blaming cannabis for the waco incident, had marijuana been discovered there.

PotShot

Oddly, I find myself agreeing here. Of course the action needed is not the same as this grief-maddened Lutheran pastor put forward. Legalization is the only way to decrease the violence and crime associated with cannabis prohibition. Blood will be on the hands of any politician who maintains prohibition.

Right on. More could be said about the competence of the police leadership that would allow such a horrible thing to happen inthe first place. This men obviously should have used more caution in dealing with a "known crazy", regardless of what plants he grew.

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king cola

It makes no sense at all that they want tougher laws. The guy shot the 4 RCMP officers because they showed up to re possess his truck which he refused to make payments on, not to mention he did have a history of violence and was a gun nut and was waiting for somethin to set him off. Apparently law enforcement itself is what did set him off, just by them being at his house, which they had a right to be there. It wasn't til after they were shot and killed that then the marijuana was found, even some law enforcement agents complained when the first story came out before a second report came out when some cops even admitted that they weren't there because of pot. These guys are breaking laws anyway, either way they are facing some jail time, i don't think tougher laws is going to scare them, and like what one person already said, it's just going to increase the price of pot when the risk goes up, which means corruption goes up, and then violence goes up.

I agree too that the families have a right to be pissed and that they are blaming the wrong thing, it's not the marijuana, it's the prohibition causing the violence. It's like talking to a wall when people try to argue that point out, people who are for prohibition let it go in one ear and out the other.

Prohibition doesn't work and has never worked, common sense would tell people that if prohibition isn't working legalization would be the answer

If it was legalized there would be no drug gangs competing against each other when it comes to marijuana, the government would be regulating and growing it. The price of pot would decrease rapidly, there would be no more money for drug gangs or just dealers in general to make. The government would be making the money off the sales.