Kirk Roberts, one of Bermuda's most notorious drug dealers, has vowed to live a life free of drug dealing once he gets out of prison.

Roberts, 42, was sent to prison for ten years in 2002 when the Supreme Court found that he played a central role in a conspiracy to import 200 pounds of marijuana.

On Friday, Roberts who had also made a name for himself as a champion powerboat racer, told The Royal Gazette that he now sees the error of his ways.

While the 2002 trial ended with his first criminal conviction, Roberts admitted on Friday that he had dealt drugs over a 20 year period.

He attributed his turnaround to the fact that he was helping to take care of two children before he was sent to prison, his recent participation in the prison's Alternative Substance Abuse Programme, and the fact that he had put his wife of 22 years and his family through too much trouble.

Roberts said that he never used or dealt hard drugs, like cocaine and heroin, only marijuana.

And he says that while he was never an addict he volunteered to participate in the ASAP to beef up his chances of parole - he could be out of prison as early as November next year.

“He came in with his cold, calculated agenda,” interjected programme director Kuni Frith Black.

But the programme opened his eyes to the dangers of marijuana as a gateway drug, he said.

“It just showed me the story from the other side,” he said. He had previously believed that marijuana was not a problem but now accepts the conventional view of drug treatment experts that “it starts them down the road to hell”.

“And you can see how these guys without drugs and alcohol can be such nice guys and go on and make it in life ... But when they start it it brings out the villain in them.”

He said while many people in the community smoked marijuana without going to other drugs, those that do start using hard drugs started their drug use with the weed.

Asked if the idea of marijuana as a gateway drug had never occurred to him when he was supplying it, he said: “To think about it is one thing (but) to have it in your face for seven months - it's two different things.”

Roberts graduated from the seven month ASAP programme last week with six others fellow inmates.

But he warned that the drug rehab programmes in prison were only one part of the equation.

“These guys need help after they get out of here. That's the they get out of here. That's the main thing. A lot of guys get to that gate and they don't know where they are going to go. The only people they know out there is the same company they had before.”

With little money, no home and estranged from their families, he asked: “Who do you turn to?”

“They need something bigger than the Transitional Living Centre to take care of these guys. At least give them an opportunity - if they want to mess up, that's their choice.”

He said he had no worries when he is released - his wife is still waiting for him and he'll have a job.

“You get guys here that are scared to leave. While I'm looking forward to getting out of here, they are not looking forward to that day.”

Roberts, who has no children of his own, added that his young niece and nephew had been living in his home before he went to prison.

“I've been with my wife 22 years. How she puts up with it I'll never know ... It wasn't so much the drug use, it was the problems that came with drug dealing - the stop list, police pulling you over, being on bail for probably about 12 years of the relationship,” Roberts continued.

At one point he was on bail for five years solid as authorities tried in vain to make different drug charges stick.

“Another reason why I've changed is I have a niece and nephew that moved into the house before I came inside - that I helped raise for four years. And that changed my perspective even before I came here, because I don't want them to have that lifestyle. Before, I didn't have children around me. Just being with them all day, and knowing that in ten or 12 years they could be sitting here smoking and buying drugs from someone like me - I don't want that for them. With age comes wisdom. And after playing the game for 22 years, I've had enough.”

His father died some weeks ago, he noted, and his mother, like his wife, was looking forward to his release.

“I've put them through enough.”

Asked why he started dealing drugs in the first place, Roberts said his initial exposure came as a youngster growing up in the Somerset area when he regularly observed other drug dealers plying their trade.

“The excitement of it, the aspect of living on the edge. That's more or less the reason why,” he added.

“I just live life on the edge, period. I race boats doing 150 miles an hour. It was the adrenaline, it wasn't the money. Everybody thinks that's part of it. For me it was the adrenaline, the excitement, beating the Police.”

In 1997, his parents Barbara and William Roberts were sent to prison for 12 years after being convicted of possession, handling and possession with intent to supply of 30 pounds of cocaine in a case defence lawyer Richard Hector suggested resulted out of Police “vendetta” against Kirk.

Charges were never filed against Roberts in connection with the cocaine which was found in the refrigerator of the family's West Side Road home. But Mr. Hector made it clear who he thought was responsible when he told the court that a “third person” was involved and “he has left his parents to face the music”.

Due to time constraints that matter did not come up in our interview last week.

“I don't know 100 percent,” said Ms Frith Black when asked if she truly believed that her client was really making a break with the past. “Intuitively I can feel the shift in his attitude. He's more sensitive. He's more compassionate. He's not this cold, calculating individual who wants to make money out of human suffering.”

Roberts characterised his escapades as a game of “cat and mouse” with the Police - “until they changed the rules on me”.

No drugs were recovered in the Police investigation which led to his conspiracy conviction in 2002.

But the Crown managed to get the co-operation of a co-conspirator, Heinz Golombeck, who turned evidence against him in return for immunity. Another conspirator, Vincentian Alphonso Holder, received a four year prison sentence for his role in the criminal enterprise.

Roberts told The Royal Gazette that the authorities should give serious thought to legalising marijuana because attempts to stop its importation will always be futile and the money spent in drug interdiction efforts could be better spent on education and prevention efforts and other social programmes.

“Not that I'm for legalising drugs ... (but) they will never stop drug smuggling. They spend billions of dollars fighting it - the courts, prosecution, Police, jail ... Instead of fighting it, legalise it and educate - just like alcohol.”

Schools should constantly spread the word that drugs and alcohol are not good, he continued, “because they are never going to stop it”.

“Police stop about ten percent of it ... You can go to any street corner and get what you want, so why are they beating their heads against the wall? Educate, even regulate. Spend that money on different things.”

He said in his school days, it had been “drilled into his head” that cocaine and heroin were harmful, but nothing was said about marijuana.

And he pointed out that the idea of going to prison was not a deterrent for him.

“For guys like me, sitting on my side of the fence, it meant nothing,” Roberts continued.

“They will never ever stop it. Guys on my side of the fence are not going to stop. Locking up guys like me is not going to change anybody's mind ... You get guys that's been locked up ten, 15 years and all they talk about is their next move.”

He said prison was not a hardship post in a physical sense but he did acknowledge that being separated from his family was emotionally and mentally difficult.

Roberts' plans upon release include working in his wife's hair salon before buying a sailboat and heading away from Bermuda with his wife Gerri and his mother.

“You won't hear of Kirk Roberts anymore. You'll find me in Fiji in a grass skirt. I don't want to make no more headlines,” he said.

“I'm buying a sailboat, taking my wife and my mother and off to the sunset we go.”