The NYT published a story yesterday called 'Violent new front in drug war opens up on Canadian border.'

It was number three on the NYT's 'most e-mailed'stories' list this morning as I wrote this and was number one when I came home last night. If only the story were true! :)

I'm still most irked by the bizarre segue into the Alberta shootings.

Now, when I first heard the news, I was ice-fishing on Lake Simcoe Thursday afternoon. The impression I had was some type of shoot-out was underway with some type of drug gang (I was listening to CBC -- on a transistor :) ).

But it was only one guy. About 20 mature pot plants and a few pounds of leaves were found (for more on this, see Shootings in Alberta? Let's do a story on B.C. pot!).

Twenty plants is nothing. One grow op discovered in Barrie, Ont. last year had taken over a large chunk of an abandoned Molson's brewery. The Globe and Mail wrote yesterday that in 2001, a rural Manitoba operation was found in which eight box cars had been buried to house a covert grow op lab.

To put it another way, my mom has more house plants than than what was found in the Quonset.

The police did find several brand new vehicles being chopped up into parts.

The cops' killer, Jim Roszko, 46, had a record of violence and sexual deviance -- but no convictions for drug trafficking, although he apparently used drugs.

But I would consider it safe to say there is no link between Roszko and "B.C. bud" production.

The facts of this had become clear on Friday, yet the Times went ahead with its story on Saturday.

A journalist I know wrote NYT public editor Daniel Okrent to complain about the sloppy reporting by Sarah Kershaw. It will be interesting to see if that gets acknowledged.