TURMEL: Molson-Labatt gang battle erupts over beer

JCT: During the era in the United States known as Prohibition, 
there used to be headlines like: 

Molson-Labatt gang battle erupts over beer
Toronto Star 
Fri Oct 24 1933
CAL MILLAR Staff Reporter

Bullets flying everywhere, police say
Elderly couple just missed being shot

Toronto's latest homicide victim was shot to death in a gun 
battle between rival gangs during a robbery attempt on a 
beer-brewing operation, police say. Staff Inspector Gary 
Ellis, head of Toronto's homicide squad, described the 22-
year-old victim as a "soldier" in a gang and said he was 
killed while trying to protect vats of beer in a house on 
Wellpark Blvd. in the Finch Ave. and McCowan Rd. area of 
Scarborough. The name of the victim is being withheld until 
his relatives are notified in China.

The shooting occurred at 7 a.m. Sunday when members of one 
gang confronted five men from a rival group who had set off 
an alarm while trying to break into a house that was being 
used to make beer. "Eight protectors showed up," Ellis said. 
"As soon as they arrived on the scene they were blasted by 
gunfire." The gang members, carrying guns, clubs and 
machetes, staged what Ellis described as a war in the middle 
of a residential street. He said bullets were flying 
everywhere, the walls of homes across the street were 
penetrated and an elderly couple narrowly missed being shot. 
"This is an organized crime gang war," Ellis said during a 
news conference yesterday at police headquarters.

A 21-year-old man was also wounded in the battle. He was 
shot twice in the head and is recovering in hospital. "This 
is a very dangerous situation," Ellis said. "We are 
concerned it's going to erupt into a cycle of violence where 
we will end up with many people killed on our streets." 
Ellis said police have met with a wall of silence while 
trying to probe the slaying.
 
Investigators have no idea which gangs are involved or 
whether they have the real names of the two people who were 
shot, he added. The slaying is Toronto's 44th of the year. 
At this time last year there were 38 homicides.
====

JCT: I'm sure there were lots of headlines just like that. 
But drop "Molson-Labatt" from the headline, change the date 
from date "1933" to 2003, "beer" for "pot," and read today's 
story: 
 
Gang battle erupts over pot
Toronto Star Fri Oct 24 2003 
CAL MILLAR
STAFF REPORTER

Bullets flying everywhere, police say
Elderly couple just missed being shot

Toronto's latest homicide victim was shot to death in a gun 
battle between rival gangs during a robbery attempt on a 
marijuana-growing operation, police say.

Staff Inspector Gary Ellis, head of Toronto's homicide 
squad, described the 22-year-old victim as a "soldier" in a 
gang and said he was killed while trying to protect a 
marijuana crop growing in a house on Wellpark Blvd. in the 
Finch Ave. and McCowan Rd. area of Scarborough.

The name of the victim is being withheld until his relatives 
are notified in China.

The shooting occurred at 7 a.m. Sunday when members of one 
gang confronted five men from a rival group who had set off 
an alarm while trying to break into a house that was being 
used to grow marijuana.

"Eight protectors showed up," Ellis said. "As soon as they 
arrived on the scene they were blasted by gunfire."

The gang members, carrying guns, clubs and machetes, staged 
what Ellis described as a war in the middle of a residential 
street.

He said bullets were flying everywhere, the walls of homes 
across the street were penetrated and an elderly couple 
narrowly missed being shot.

"This is an organized crime gang war," Ellis said during a 
news conference yesterday at police headquarters.

A 21-year-old man was also wounded in the battle. He was 
shot twice in the head and is recovering in hospital.

"This is a very dangerous situation," Ellis said. "We are 
concerned it's going to erupt into a cycle of violence where 
we will end up with many people killed on our streets." 

Ellis said police have met with a wall of silence while 
trying to probe the slaying.

Investigators have no idea which gangs are involved or 
whether they have the real names of the two people who were 
shot, he added.

The slaying is Toronto's 44th of the year. At this time last 
year there were 38 homicides.
=====

JCT: When was the last time anyone heard about Molson and 
Labatt gangs shooting it out over beer sales? What stopped 
their gun-play in the alleys and turned into competition in 
the board-rooms? What turned their machine-guns into pens?

Can the same thing stop the cannabis gun-play and turn it 
into competition with pens in the boardrooms instead of 
machine-guns in the alleys?  

Drop prohibition and crime control.
Adopt Legalization and tax control. 

Unfortunately, only 3 of the 13 Members sitting on 
Parliament's Special Committee on the Non-medical use of 
drugs get to read this. The other 10 unsubscribed. And I 
haven't heard whether they'll be wanting to add the date 
about the 10 dead epileptics a day due to prohibition to 
their upcoming deliberations. 

But at least 257 other MPs in Parliament do get to read 
about old prohibitionist history whether they're on the 
committee or not and may pass it along to the majority of 
the deliberately uninformed. 

And is this soldier's death not another genocide by the 
prohibition of beer? Oops, marijuana? 

Didn't the law-makers in Washington cause the genocide of 
all those people forced into the underground beer wars? 
Aren't all the "beer" soldiers who die before the battles 
got to the board-rooms not counted as a result of the 
prohibition? And didn't those law-makers in Washington 
finally cause the genocide of soldiers to end by abolishing 
prohibition? 

Blame the Canadian Government's Prohibition Policy for the 
death of that young man in the same way we can blame the US 
Prohibition Policy for those same deaths. Add in the 
accidents had the old couple been hit. Every dead innocent 
during the American prohibition can be blamed to the 
lawmakers in Washington who let it continue until they 
exercised their power to stop it. All today's dead innocents 
during world-wide prohibition on cannabis will be blamed on 
the lawmakers in Ottawa and Washington and the UN in the 
very same way as we now look at the lawmakers who did it 
three quarters of a century ago.

Thank every prohibitionist you know for taxes us to fight in 
the alleys rather than let the battles reach the boardrooms. 

So, added to the easiest-to-prove genocide against 
epileptics, throw in the corpses caused by guns instead of 
seizures? I'd love to throw in some stats on longer lives 
for AIDS, Hep. C, Cancer sufferers but if they can't keep up 
with actual deaths, how can low-tech judges of the problem 
be expected to keep up with statistical explanations for 
non-life.

When it's over and the dying stops, then those who had the 
power to stop it earlier face the indictment I keep warning 
them about. Their K-slab of responsibility for the lost 
souls who would have made it had they used their power 
sooner and as soon as they heard. . 

Honestly, If Justices Doherty, Goudge and Simmons had 
announced that all Canada's 400,000 epileptics should have 
themselves a joint on hand, as I had urged, because the 
prohibitions on the possession and cultivation of their 
anti-seizure medicine had fallen since Terry Parker Day. 

But they chose to worsen the chance of epileptic medicine 
being legalized by announcing they were legislating 
prohibition back to life though I'd already objected to such 
usurpation of Parliaments' prerogative once the prohibition 
had been invalidated. Despite being told they have have no 
power to keep the prohibition of anti-seizure medicine 
alive, they still tried and so not only did they not 
eliminate the risk to 400,000 Canada's epileptics by 
accepting that the prohibition on their medicine was no 
longer valid but they made saving them even harder by 
accepting that and ruling they were legislating it back into 
existence. 

Would that "soldier" guarding the illegal crop of epilepsy 
medicine have died if those judges had heeded The Engineer's 
warning that they had power to end deaths in the "pot 
wars" here just like they ended the deaths in the "beer 
wars" then? No. 
He wouldn't have been a gangster with a pistol, 
Guarding now legal hemp, a security guard with a whistle, 

So just like those side-casualties all dropped to zero when 
Molson and Labatt took their battles to the boardrooms, that 
lesson should not be lost on the lawmakers of today. Their 
K-slabs of responsibility last forever. You can never get 
them back once they've been lost. 

Hope this soldier's hanging around Heaven's Gate to kick ass 
when his K-slabbers show up. But remember the line in Bible 
that says we all get in. So our journeys go on. 

Anyway, the judges failed to take The Engineer's warnings of 
genocide seriously and this young man soldier's death can be 
traced to their inaction. And I get to remind the world 
every time a new victim of the drug prohibition happens. 

We should scour the news and post the names of those who 
would not have died had Doherty Simmons and Goudge not 
resurrected the prohibition on their anti-seizure medicine. 


--
Abolitionist Slave Leader John C."The Banking Systems Engineer" Turmel
for UNILETS interest-free time-based currency in U.N. resolution C6
to Governments in the http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm 
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel 519-756-1325 USENET: can.politics