Skunk Embarrasses Overzealous Drug Raiders

Gatineau, Quebec
Jan. 8th 2001

This is a tail raising story recently from Canada.

Oliver MacQuat recently opened his door to guns pointed at him from an overzealous 10 man drug raid task force who suspected that he had a marijuana grow operation inside his home.
He ended up terrified by the drug task force as they ransacked his home and frightened his son as well who came home to see a slew of cops all over the family property.

So after the terrifying ordeal this family went through the drug task force came up not finding anything drug related.

Come to find out, the family had a wild skunk hunkered down for the winter under their front porch.
Somehow the cops were able to determine by smelling the skunks natural odor that the people who resided there must be marijuana farmers and this warranted a drug raid on an innocent family.

You would think with the special training police officers get, that they would be able to tell the difference between the smell of an animal and a plant!

Pretty soon skunks everywhere will have to be hyper vigilant about where they decide to sleep out their winters as Federal Drug Task Forces will be rooting them out and involuntarily displacing them due to the similar odor to that evil marijuana plant.

How can a smell that is only similar to marijuana simply be probable cause to raid someones home?

MacQuat wants name cleared

Still MacQuat is asking for a formal apology from the Gatineau police and the Quebec provincial police.
Gatineau police refused to call the raid a mistake Friday, telling CBC News they had reasonable grounds (WTF???) to conduct a search.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2011/01/08/ottawa-police-raid-108.html#ixzz1Aa9llDxt

I really do not understand how the police can claim they had reasonable grounds. This is getting ridiculous people. Just this past year I have seen families woken up in the night to having guns in their faces, children being dragged out of their homes, the family pet shot for less than a quarter ounce of marijuana. To a

quadriplegic being arrested for possessing marijuana and going to jail because the marijuana helped them function better.

Luckily no one got hurt in this particular instance, other than a mans reputation as an honest citizen. The skunk was taken in for questioning then released after lab tests confirmed it was negative for marijuana.

The thing is though this is madness that has got to draw the line somewhere. The offense just does not suit the punishment and the indignity it propagates by harassing otherwise law abiding people.

Whats next? Are people going to have their vehicles searched because they ran over one of those involuntarily displaced skunks catching a nap on the road?

Why does Joe the Plumber have to fear having his door kicked in and having guns in his face for wanting to be able to have the freedom to come home after a long hard day of work fixing some shitty drainpipe and be able to relax in the privacy of his home smoking a marijuana cigarette?

And now, we have to worry about pissed off displaced skunks...