PTSD-afflicted Mountie who smoked marijuana found dead

Cpl. Ron Francis, the New Brunswick Mountie who garnered national attention for smoking medical marijuana while in uniform, has been found dead of an apparent suicide.

The news was announced Monday night by the group Families of the RCMP for PTSD Awareness.

"We write this note with a very heavy heart, we have lost another RCMP member, Cpl. Ron Francis who lost his battle with PTSD, today Monday Oct 6th, 2014," wrote the group in a Monday night post.

Last November, Francis became an overnight celebrity after he appeared on CBC smoking marijuana while dressed in his RCMP red serge dress uniform.

A 21-year veteran of the force, Francis had been legally prescribed medical marijuana to treat his posttraumatic stress disorder, and said he made the appearance as a protest of the RCMP's PTSD policy.

"I'm trying to draw attention to the fact that the RCMP fails to have a program in place for proper (PTSD) screening for their members and proper information for their families," he told Postmedia News at the time.

"People are dying, they're committing suicide because there's no proper backup," he added.

A witness to several murder scenes and fatal automobile collisions, Francis said a major factor behind his PTSD diagnosis came in 2012 when authorities broke up a plot to kill him.

Following the CBC appearance, Francis was ordered to turn in his uniform.

At the time, Justice Minister Peter MacKay condemned the stunt, saying it "sets a poor example for Canadians."

Just last month, Francis appeared in a New Brunswick court to plead guilty to assaulting fellow RCMP officers. He had previously pleaded not guilty to assaulting two officers in a Dec. 6 incident when he punched and shoved RCMP members who had confronted him on a Fredericton street in an effort to take him to hospital for a mental-health assessment.

A few weeks later, Francis assaulted two other officers in Oromocto after they arrested him for breaching the terms of his probation by drinking alcohol.

Weeping as he delivered his plea, Francis said at the time that he hoped his case would bring attention to the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder.