Government MP Ashfield DeVent has called for Bermuda's cannabis laws to be liberalised as he chastised fellow MPs for being reluctant to debate the issue.

Mr. DeVent said he had been impressed that people such as surgeon Joseph Froncioni were willing to stand up and express their views in this newspaper's series on the subject.

But that stance contrasts with Bermuda's political leaders. The Royal Gazette approached 15 politicians and former politicians for their views about drugs laws.

Just two Opposition MP John Barritt and Mr. DeVent were willing to offer views about how Bermuda handled its drugs policy.

Mr. DeVent said: "Everyone seems too frightened to speak.

"The leaders of the Country haven't wanted to talk about it in the media and generally. We are having this conversation on race but I think the drug issue is equally important."

The National Drug Control Department ignored a string of E-mails, and then said, via a Government spokesman, that it was too busy to talk to The Royal Gazette about its drugs series because it was in the middle of budget preparations.

Social Rehabilitation Minister Neletha Butterfield also refused to comment.

However Mr. DeVent has long been a vocal critic of how Bermuda handles drugs and related law and order problems.

He has complained Police ignore dealers in his Pembroke constituency and late last year he alleged corruption in the Police, prison and customs services as he claimed known drug dealers were being left alone.

And he is not the only one in his party urging a rethink.

In 2006 PLP colleague Wayne Perinchief, who was then Minister of National Drug Control (NDC), was defeated in his bid to downgrade cannabis offences.Departing PLP chairman David Burt recently said the governing party would debate cannabis laws at its forthcoming conference.Mr. DeVent would not predict how it will go but he believes attitudes to cannabis are generational, with older people more likely to be against liberalising the law."But that age is passing on. There is another group of people saying 'I smoked cannabis, gave it up, but it never made me want to go out and rob somebody'. "We are being more honest and realistic about what these substances are hence the need to reclassify."He said already various drugs were being treated differently by the courts, with crack cocaine attracting higher sentences than powder cocaine something Mr. DeVent believes showed racial and economic bias given the different demographics using two versions of the same substance.And the current cannabis law had made "criminals" out of thousands of Bermudians who were otherwise productive members of society, said Mr. DeVent."We are stuck in the past, most progressive countries have had a rethink."But Bermuda is simply following the United States in a war on drugs which isn't working, said Mr. DeVent."I have always said the war on drugs is a war on people."Ironically those in recovery were told about the futility of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."It seems we have taken that approach in how we try to deal with the substance abuse issue."Mr. DeVent said he was not calling for a legalising all drugs just allowing those with small amounts of drugs to escape criminal sanction and instead be given mandatory drug counselling.He said hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine fuelled crime and murder and needed to be treated more seriously, under the law."You don't hit someone on the head for a smoke of cannabis."Those supporting Bermuda's current laws have argued that legalising drugs will vastly increase the numbers of addicts opting out of society. Not so, claims Mr. DeVent. He said: "The statistics I have seen will show that in places like Holland where it has been accessible to people for quite some time, particularly cannabis users, they smoke for a certain stage of their life and then grow out of it."Some go back and smoke occasionally but others stop all together."Let's be frank there are people who will always find some substances to abuse and get high. There's nothing you can do to prevent them from going in that direction. "Just like one guy will have a glass of wine over dinner and he's fine. The other guy has one glass and he goes on a drunken roll. That's the way it is. Mankind has always found some way to alter his mind."The poor guy will go sniff some glue. We have to be honest about this."And while most politicians have preferred to keep quiet, even some Bermudians actively wanting a change in the law have preferred to stay in the background.One man associated with Bermuda's legalise cannabis campaign on Facebook ironically preferred not to put his name forward and argue his views.Instead he said: "In reality I believe it's a lost cause. No matter how good of a plan it may be on paper, most Bermudians are too ignorant to change. "People will only complain about the problems that will be created, and not the problems that will be solved."Blogger Denis Pitcher, who has written extensively about the failing of current drug policy on his website 21square.com, said the debate needed to be handled carefully to avoid politicians sitting on the fence because they feared lost votes. He said: "Bermuda should commission an independent body to produce a report and submit recommendations for drug policy changes to be put to the people via referendum."And although the PLP is said to be about to discuss cannabis policy at its forthcoming conference Mr. Pitcher fears the party will not take a stance on it because it risks sacrificing support. "Thus, the only way we can effectively come to resolutions on these and similar controversial issues like gambling, independence, equal rights and congestion taxes, is to commission reports and put the issues to vote amongst the people. "By doing so we absolve our politicians of being accountable for the decision and thus open them to focus on commissioning balanced reports. "By never putting these issues to the public they'll perpetually hang in a state of flux and we'll likely continue to waste great deals of time debating issues but never deciding anything."United Bermuda Party MP John Barritt agreed the wider community needed to enter the debate.He added: "This once again underscores the need for bi-partisan or perhaps more appropriately multi-partisan legislative committees which are open to public and press to receive submissions and then subsequently reporting findings and recommendations to Parliament. "To my mind, this should be standard operating procedure on major policy decisions."Some believe that changing drug laws isn't remotely likely given Bermuda's innate conservatism and its powerful church lobby.But Mr. DeVent hopes this isn't the case. He said: "After a fair open discussion with the information being provided clearly and honestly I think the Country might be in a position of really rethinking what we have done in the past that has not worked."I believe if the Country doesn't step outside the box and think differently about its approach some of the real negative social consequences we have seen lately guns and gangs will continue and possibly get worse."It's time to for us to openly look at how we deal with it. If it hasn't worked we have to do something different."