Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
As many of you will know, Government has announced that work has begun by a “Cannabis Reform Committee” to produce a paper on cannabis policy reform. The paper will identify the benefits and consequences of reclassifying cannabis and investigate its medical use. Without doubt it is one of the most difficult and divisive issues of the day. Also without doubt it is an issue about which many of our retired and former police officers will have had first-hand experience and have their own strong opinions.
With that in mind, our Bermuda Ex-Police Officers Association has just been approached by an organization known as Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) to ask if retired police officers here would be interested in meeting with one of their speakers who will be coming to Bermuda in late February to make a series of presentations to various groups.
LEAP has been created by former law enforcement officers in the U.S. together with retired judges, lawyers and prison officers who have been on the front lines in the "War on Drugs" and who believe that society needs to move away from strict prohibition of drugs and move to the treatment of drug abuse as a mental health problem instead of a criminal problem.
LEAP has a very informative website which you can find at http://www.leap.cc
The speaker in Bermuda will be their co-founder, retired Police Lieutenant Jack Cole, and he is particularly interested in meeting with fellow former Bermuda Police Officers to discuss the issues and the reasons why LEAP believes so strongly in stopping the prohibition of illegal drugs.
Retired Police Lieutenant Jack Cole
We would be very interested to hear from our members, especially those who live in Bermuda, as to whether you would be interested in hearing a point of view that may not match your own, but will no doubt be both informative and thought provoking.
If you are interested would you please let us know at info@expoBermuda.com and if there is sufficient interest we will arrange a meeting with Mr. Cole.
If you do nothing else we urge you to take a few minutes to watch a television interview with retired Police Captain Peter Christ (also a spokesman for LEAP) on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8yYJ_oV6xk
See if you can identify with his homicide rate statistics before and after the prohibition of alcohol, and how it might compare with our own murder and gang-related statistics as it relates to the present prohibition on drugs.