http://www.wgrz.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=26790

while i was going to begin by saying i'm not usually affected by a story such as this, i must say i don't really hear any stories quite like this. i'm surprisingly shaken and feel compelled to share it. fuck around.

And that's the main reason why I still have a strongly negative attitude toward even mild recreational use of any illegal drug. As long as the stuff is illegal, there will always be well-meaning people out there, trying to serve their communities, who are from time to time made to go through a door and get shot at and possibly killed.

No matter how little you use, no matter how seldom, you're part of the drug economy, and you contribute to such things.

Just as an American taxpayer bears some of the ill karma from an errant bomb that lands on a hut full of women and children, the marijuana smoker bears some of the ill karma from incidents like this. I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything. We all do things to contribute to death or suffering, even if it's merely choosing not to give to charity. But it's something that should be factored into the decision to smoke the stuff.

My condolences go out to the officers' families and comrades, as well as to the family of the man who killed them.

Amen, SC.

so we should never do anything illegal because we contribute to senseless violence. right.
and marijuana ought to be as punishable here as in the US because it clearly was the only reason four RCMP members got wasted.

here's some follow-up.

here

this one is a good example of why the above reasoning sounds good, but has its share of flaws

SO FUCKING PISSED OFF!!!!!!!!!!

this is a tragedy that goes beyond four lost lives.

I don't smoke anything, but still I think the criminalization of marijuana is creating and supporting organized crime. Like in prohibition time US. And that is just plain stupid.
I can see in my everyday work-life, how tougher measures to contain marijuana use is leading to much tougher criminal gangs. And still smoking is on the rise.

But then I generally don't believe in legislation that criminalizes a major part of the population. And nowadays, that is a radical point of view.

Legalize it... Give permits to grow ops, and tax the crap out of it.

If that Grow-Op was a legally run marijuana farm, the cops would never have been over there trying to bust it.

The loss of life is tragic. I'm appalled that this dumb mother fucker hadn't been in prison already for shooitng at people with a shotgun, which I read in the myriad of articles in the Toronto SUN.

The guy was a sicko in the first place. There were even child molestation charges borught up on him, but tossed for lack of evidence.

quote:

Originally posted by charmakarmacat:
so we should never do anything illegal because we contribute to senseless violence. right.
and marijuana ought to be as punishable here as in the US because it clearly was the only reason four RCMP members got wasted.

Hey, if you don't want to actually read my post, then that's your prerogative.

If it was the law that an Indonesian orphan had to be chained to the bumper of my car all the time, that would be an asinine law. I would work to get that law repealed so that someday I could once again enjoy the use of my car without killing someone. But in the meantime, even if it meant for the rest of my life, I wouldn't drive my car, even though it would mean that my life was less fun and less convenient.

As long as a drug is illegal, the supply system for that drug will depend on violence to protect its markets and infrastructure. There's a nice long tradition in the economics literature on this topic, and most of it is written by very smart economists who smoke tons of weed. As long as a drug is illegal, consumption of that drug contributes to that violence.

There is a 'cost' in the economics literature called the 'Paul-Wilhite' cost, named after Chris Paul and Ed Wilhite. Society incurs a Paul-Wilhite cost when a drug trafficker uses violence to enforce his property rights or maintain barriers to entry to his market against other traffickers. So when a drive-by occurs and a bullet passes through a wall and kills an eleven-year-old girl at the dinner table by accident, that little girl's death is a Paul-Wilhite cost. Traffickers cannot use the police to enforce their property rights (can't call the cops if someone steals their dope or kills their dealers) and can't lobby the government to maintain barriers to entry (eliminate foreign or other competition), so they use guns, bombs and knives. The people killed in that violence are dead because a)the drugs are illegal (which is something you have little control over), b)they were in the wrong place at the wrong time (which is something you have no control over) and c)there is demand for the drugs. You have very little influence over the aggregate demand for drugs, but you can certainly keep your own soul clean by refusing to personally contribute to that demand.

If I was a person who loooooved the dope, I'd still not use it until it was legalized. I would certainly put some effort into getting it legalized before I just said 'fuck it' and went out to buy a dime bag.

There was obviously a lot more than drug market violence going on in the incident you posted about. I didn't intend for my initial remark to be an all-inclusive explainer for that incident.

But it would be neither inaccurate nor an exaggeration to say that you contribute to senseless violence or at least some kind of senseless danger when you break a law. Law enforcement is a dangerous business, and by contributing to any kind of criminal activity which spreads law enforcement resources more thinly, you do contribute to that danger.

By speeding on the highway, I make it easier for a murderer to get away with his crime. By getting in a drunken fight in a bar, I contribute to a child molester getting away with raping a little girl. Depending on a number of factors, that contribution may be significant, or it may be tiny. But it's there nonetheless.

I'm not damning you, I'm not saying I'm better than you. Read the bloody post.

Aye, I actually agree with Splitcoil for once. His argument isn't moral, it's Newtonian. The Dragon's workaround for chronic marijuana abusers would be to grow your own damn pot; if you need it that bad then be willing to accept the consequnces for your behavior when you get caught. You can enjoy your smoke and not be funding the violent supply and infrastructure end of things while doing so.

The other side of Splitcoils's argument I don't see him fully addressing though is how culpable the government is for keeping assanine laws enforced that make marijuana illegal in the first place. Demand doesn't evaporate just because a bunch of lawyers write a few paragraphs into a lawbook, and we had plenty of experience from Prohibition here in the US to see that increased criminalization usually leads to increased levels of violence, while doing little to actually stop people from using the inebriant. Not to mention all the liberty errosions anti-drug legislature has allowed. Consider you can be the straightest arrow in the bunch and still have to go through a time wasting vehicle search simply because the officer thought your eye movements were indicative of some kind of drug abuse and you were 'acting funny.' For some of us time wasted is money lost.

oh i read the post. and i recognize the truth within it. it just doesn't address what i feel really could be addressed. those four boys didn't get shot because they were investigating an illegal marijuana grow op. they were killed because buddy got the drop on them. they were killed because they maybe weren't paying attention. they got killed because some fucking guy ought to have already been put away, and wasn't. they got killed because people are greedy and will kill for money or kill for what will create money. they should have fucking known better.

what gets me so irate, is that the first comment after i posted the story, is immediately anti-drug. period. the same way as Giuliano Zaccardelli's reactionary "a plague on our society" comment was.

i didn't want this to be a marijuana morality discussion. as the articles say, it's the single worst case of RCMP casualties in 120 years. it shocked me enough that i posted it. i guess i was hoping for the discussion to go elsewhere. or nowhere. that there are people willing to blow four police officers away just boggles my mind. it's easy to become naive when you don't read or here about it often.

sorry to slander your opinion like that. though i don't agree with it (the practice, not the truth) i didn't mean to let my frustration get the best of me.

The so-called "war on drugs" has been going on in the states for over 30 years. Law enforcement is losing. It's time to pull the troops out of this war and use policy to defeat drug addiction.

But with the neocons in power we can pretty much rule that out. This is the same group that thinks it's more important to make sure business can get tax breaks and support than people, or interested in bailing out failing business than bailing out failing families.

Never mind that alcohol does a hell of a lot more damage to our society than pot ever did. When was the last time you saw a stoner get pissed of cause someone was lookin' at his "lady" in a bar and knifed 'em?

But hey, law and politics is rarely based on anything remotely resembling common-sense.

'Course this kind of thing only makes me want to live in Can-ay-da even more. I mean, the outrage! Four dead mounties, "the most killed in the line of duty in 120 years!". Wow. That's a pretty peacable society ya got there.

Still, though, you don't allow every Joe Schmoe his allotted 3 to 1000 handguns up there. What's that all aboot?

there are plenty of gats to go around. we just choose to give permits to people who apply for them, which i believe involves a test. passing of said test and government approval yeilds your FAC (firearms aquisition certificate) for rifles and shotguns; further application is required for a pistol, classed as a restricted weapon, but not a strictly prohibited one. i'm fairly certain an designated RCMP guy stamps this one. and you must go to a firearms retailer to get one. Wal-Mart won't do. sort of like booze, there are designated stores for it, you just can't get it at your local convenience or grocery store.
but just like anywheres, there are other channels, too.
after buying a pistol, you cannot walk oot with it. the retailer sends it to the local RCMP where it sits in gun jail (yes, i'm serious) for a designated amount of time. i can't remember why.

quote:

after buying a pistol, you cannot walk oot with it. the retailer sends it to the local RCMP where it sits in gun jail (yes, i'm serious) for a designated amount of time. i can't remember why.

It's so you can't walk across the road from the gun shop back into the bar and shoot the guy who was lookin' at your lady.

quote:

It's so you can't walk across the road from the gun shop back into the bar and shoot the guy who was lookin' at your lady.

quite a sensible bit of legislation. wish things were that way here, considering i live adjacent to the most heavily armed county in the state. of course the problem with that many guns is you don't worry about people buying a gun after getting pised off, you worry about the guy who suddenly gets up and walks into the parking lot and stops for a few minutes at his truck before heading back to the discussion. remarkably crime free bit of real estate though.

quote:

Originally posted by charmakarmacat:
oh i read the post. and i recognize the truth within it... they were killed because they maybe weren't paying attention.

While the root cause of their death is of course a homicidal psycho, there is some truth to what you say. It's pretty unusual, even in Canada, to send four normal uniforms in soft vests out to a grow op, especially if the proprietor is known to be armed and crazy. Resources are limited and all, but yeah, that wasn't such a great idea, and some heads should roll for that.

quote:

sorry to slander your opinion like that. though i don't agree with it (the practice, not the truth) i didn't mean to let my frustration get the best of me.

No problem. It's a terribly sensitive issue, which is why I tried to pad my comments with caveats and disclaimers. I rather expected folks to get riled up. Thanks for giving it the benefit of the doubt on the second go-round.

Of course the gun laws up here in Canada don't work the way the government would like, because no criminals have registered their guns yet. A favourite argument of the mountie's, in regards to the *new* guns laws is that they'd know if there were any guns in a property before they entered. Assuming they're entering the property of a law-abiding citizen...

Still, there's remarkable little gun crime up here. I seem to recall there's still more (or comparable numbers at least) incidents of Mounties shooting themselves in the leg, than Mounties being shot by others.

Legality of M-J aside...

The guy was a nutcase. He had a history of running people off his property with a shotgun, stalking his friends (broke into one guy's house repeatedly), threatening local public school officials, harrassing election enumerators, among other things. The cops were on his property investigating car theft when they came across the grow op.

So in this particular case, it's not drugs causing the crime. He's just crazy.

I wonder what the 'Paul-Wilhite' cost of alcohol related deaths is, all told, compared to marijuana, coffee or cotton.

"According to the National Council on Alcoholism, alcohol is a contributing factor in more than fifteen thousand deaths and 6 million injuries due to accidents each year... One survey estimates that more than 40% of all arrests made by the police are directly related to alcohol... as many as 50% of prison inmates arrested for crimes such as murder and assault had been drinking when they committed violent acts...[and] 63% of women who are violently abused by their husbands who were drinking when they were violent"

Lucas, Eileen. The Eighteenth and Twenty-First Amendments: Alcohol-
Prohibition and Repeal. Berkeley Heights: Enslow Pub., 1998.

Those were statistics for the USA. Tobacco is directly involved in nearly half a million American deaths each year. Quite clearly the legal acceptance of substances does not stop their effects on society, but criminalization often leads to increased violence directly related to law enforcement.

Supporting any War on Drugs is a waste of taxes. These guys can't even keep drugs out of their own prisons, let alone off the streets. Why should we keep enabling noneffective behavior?

CKC, when you said "anti-drug" did you mean all drugs, or just dope?

Maybe you'd like to know why I dislike dope so much, apart from the usual stonerness?

One of the friends of my brother smoked grass for a while, and as a result is now a chronic schizophrenic. Oh, sure, someone out there will say he was a pussy and couldn't handle it, but it can fuck you up big time. He's twenty-two and needs full time care.

So fuck that shit. And, frankly, fuck any idiot who stands for it.

So I steer clear. In ten years time, I still wanna think of myself as lithos and not as, say, Napoleon.

However, pot is nothing in terms of dangerousness compared to smack or meth or coke.

So my idea for winning this war on drugs is this:

Legalise everything.

Drop the price of crack and smack down to $20 a kilo, hell, have the govt subsidise it. Give out free needles and pipes, and when the first ten thousand or so people OD (and have to deal with our health system), we'll wake the fuck up and realise how fucking bad it is.

Like smoking, when people actually see the fucking evidence, only then will they do something.

Course, the above is probably satirical.