The Heroic Brad Jardis Kicked Out of LEAP!

January 24, 2010 by Ian
Filed under: Issues, National, News, Personal Freedom, Police, Update

A few days back on this blog we posted the news that longtime NH police officer Brad Jardis was no longer going to arrest medical cannabis users. Jardis has shown much courage – far more than the average cop – in first coming out verbally against the insane war on drugs, and now taking the first step into actually doing the right thing and refusing to enforce bad laws.

Despite the courage he has and the support he has earned in the community because of it, the organization known as Law Enforcement Against Prohibition has unceremoniously booted him from their ranks. Brad posted the email he received from LEAP’s head, Jack Cole, on the Free Keene Forum. In it, Cole takes position that while LEAP members are encouraged to speak out about the horrors of prohibition, as long as they are employed as LEOs, they must enforce bad laws, because to not do so would be “unethical and wrong”. It’s a sad statement that outs LEAP as an organization of nothing more than a bunch of talkers, rather than doers. Of course, Cole is incorrect. Enforcing laws that harm peaceful people is what is unethical and wrong.

Other law enforcement officers, who are members of LEAP, have announced they will be sending in their resignations. Many other supporters of LEAP are sending in revocations of their membership, and explaining why. Some of these messages can be found on this forum thread.

Here’s the message Jack Cole sent to Brad, with Cole’s full contact info at the bottom.

Dear Bradley Jardis,

I have tried but am unable to reach you by telephone.

It has come to LEAP’s attention from the below blog entry, that you have
chosen to violate the oath you took on joining the police department; to
enforce all the laws of the federal and state governments in which your
police department has jurisdiction. And worse, you are calling on other law
enforcement officials to violate their oaths of office.

This is the opposite of what LEAP requires of our representatives. We have
always said that we will in no way ask that any law enforcer decline to do
his or her duty by refusing to enforce the laws as they are currently
recorded. That would be unethical and wrong. What we do call on them for is
take action on their off-duty time to help us change those laws.

Because you have so blatantly stepped over that line, your actions have
caused people to lose respect for our organization, which leads to a loss of
our credibility within the public, the media and the policymakers; the very
people whom we are trying to convince to change these laws.

The Executive Board of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition was made aware of
your actions in their January 22, 2010 Board meeting. They were unanimous in
their decision that you must no longer represent Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition while espousing this belief.

As Executive Director of LEAP, I therefore am notifying you that,
effectively immediately, you are to stop referring to yourself as a speaker
for or member of LEAP in your publications, interviews, and public or
private addresses.

Sincerely,

Jack A. Cole
Executive Director
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
121 Mystic Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
(781) 393-6985 LEAP Office (781) 393 2964 FAX
(781) 396-0183 Home Office (617) 792-3877 Cell
jackacole@leap.cc www.leap.cc

Other law enforcement officers

theKINGofKEENE

YO!, rory! L.E.A.P. wants, in addition to "legalizing" all drugs, for the *GOV'T* to control production & distribution of drugs. That what you want? Here's your new LEAP acronym: "LEAP": Lame Excuses for America's Police". I'm not proud of *ANYBODY* in this whole story. I'm ashamed of you all. Please stop proving how stupid you all are, OK???…anybody else see the Union Leaders' comments section on this story???…Where has my America gone???…
SamFox

Comment by theKINGofKEENE

January 28, 2010 @ 6:22 pm

"YO!, rory! L.E.A.P. wants, in addition to “legalizing” all drugs, for the *GOV’T* to control production & distribution of drugs. That what you want? Here’s your new LEAP acronym: “LEAP”: Lame Excuses for America’s Police”. I’m not proud of *ANYBODY* in this whole story. I’m ashamed of you all. Please stop proving how stupid you all are, OK???…anybody else see the Union Leaders’ comments section on this story???…Where has my America gone???…"

Yo, King of Keene. I think your crown is to tight.

How else can we handle drugs & the drug war? What would you suggest? Do you know that LEO's have killed more people in botched drug raids in the last 15-20 years than cannabis has in all recorded history? Here is your lame excuse for many US LEO's.
http://tinyurl.com/ydthnn8

Do you want to live in a free country?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory180.htm…

You must acknowledge that drugs are here. To stay. After decades of the failed war on drugs, there are more drugs in the US than ever. They are 'better' & cheaper. So, do you think the war on drugs is a success? Would you rather have the drugs manufactured & controlled by the States who would impose quality controls so doses would be uniform & prevent many over dose deaths or let the cartels keep producing them?

The only thing that has not been tried is the RE-legalization of all drugs. The Fed gov should not do the dispensing or manufacture, the states should. The RE-legalization & dispensing of drugs should be linked to Consequenses Of Use education as some drugs are very addictive. Drug use should be treated as a medical problem, not a criminal one. RE-legalization would be much less expensive than the war & would save lives.

Do you have any idea of how many die every year from legal Rx drugs, "whose side affects may include"… death?
http://www.naturalnews.com/009278.html

Who is making $$ from the drug war? The cartels make the most. How much is funneled to bribes? How far does the corruption reach? You are not tired of all that? RE-legalization would take a lot of $$ from the cartels & reduce corruption. I say dry up their profits, RE-legalize! But educate, honestly, as well.

You need to do the research on WHY cannabis was made illegal. Here is a teaser: Did you know that W.R. Hearst was not really worried about cannabis? Do you even know who he & Harry Anslinger were? Hearst was after hemp, not the kind of cannabis that gets ya 'high'. So he linked smoking cannabis to industrial hemp so he could get HEMP outlawed. I challenge you to find out why.

No disrespect is intended. But you set me off by your apparent lack of knowledge as per your statements.

Please realize: THE WAR ON DRUGS IS AN ABJECT FAILURE!!! IT IS SO TOTALLY LOST!! Not to mention so expensive & deadly to freedom & liberty & innocent lives! To change direction is NOT NOT NOT surrender!!! It IS changing tactics so that lives can be saved & freedom to choose is restored. Re visit my 2nd link.

Not shouting. Caps are for emphasis not shouting. Thanks.

SamFox
Rory

Samfox

i agree with everything you say, except yes, i do want the government to control them. In fact, I would be happy with anyone controlling them – excet the criminal gangs that control them now
Norbert

Rory,

Letting government to control anything will always lead to bribery, higher price, worse quality and racketing.

Not sure you want that,no?
Rory

Norbert

I understand where you are coming from.

One is tempted to ask then why we should be campaigning for prohibition to end? Cos the Government doesnt have control – criminal gangs do.

I want people to decide for themselves, on better information than they have now. We can only do that with regulation – which means some government involvement
http://ringingliberty.com Paul

We don't need either the criminals on the streets or the criminals in government controlling things, we need to let people be free to make their own decisions, as long as they don't harm others. People can handle buying beer, other food, pharmaceuticals, etc, etc, without government control. There are many sources of good information these days other than the government.

I of course agree with you that regulation would be better than prohibition, however.

No good person should kidnap sick people for using cannabis. Jardis took the right stand. I think the thinking of LEAP (not that it's unusual) is far too concerned with process, rather than morality. Actions are not judged rightly by whether they follow a certain process e.g: did politicians elected in a vote approve them? Rather, they are judged rightly by their inherent nature.

It is no conflict to say that for southern police to refuse to arrest murderers of minorities was immoral, but refusing to arrest Rosa Parks would have been moral. Rosa parks was not harming others — the murderers were. That is the criteria — the law is not the criteria.

Again: there is no valid moral judgment of an action on any basis other than its inherent moral nature.

I certainly wish LEAP great success in their efforts against prohibition, but I choose to use my limited resources on efforts I find to be more principled. Reformation towards a society in which all individuals, including cops, take responsibility for their own moral actions is far too important a goal for me to sideline it in any way.

I don't want respect for the law, I want respect for people's rights, and opposition to aggressive violence.
Norbert

Rory,

that question seems valid in the first place. Yet, the reason for the shadow market is the prohibition itself. Because the risk to deal with prohibited goods is of magnitudes higher than with, say bubble gum, criminal gangs will start to run the market, as they do not shy away of violent action and big scale bribery to minimize their risk getting caught.

Once the prohibition ends, the market for gangs with such violent behavior dries up (see alcohol prohibition) and crimes in this realm almost ceases to exist.

End prohibition equals end crime that paid during prohibition.

Now instead just having a free market you would opt to have the gov control the good. Admitted it might reduce the violent crime, but not as much as just ending prohibition.

Government would come up with rules on whom to sell, what to sell at what price, all the good stuff. Rules to be effective are always enforced at gun point. And voila, we have again a market with a pretty high risk for all those bad guys willing to provide those that do not fall within the government admitted group of users.

That's why I think just ending the prohibition is the right means. Besides my basic belief that government has no business in any victimless crime anway.
theKINGofKEENE

Norbert's 100% correct here. Thanks! I say, decriminalize marijauna. Let adults grow and smoke it in private. Within a year or 2, the import market for weed would be gone. No more narco-trafficers in weed, anyway! Very little else would change in a bigger public perspective…just go look at the latest High Times. The American public is producing ever greater quality and quantities of weed, even under current prohibition conditions. The "other drugs"??? whatever.///
http://basicexposure.com Harold J Morales

Thanks Brad!

Your actions represent HOPE!
theKINGofKEENE

WHOA! Hey, samfox, you've got my position all wrong, dude!…no offense taken on my part…Anslinger? Bureau of Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs. W.R.Hearst, control of vast timber interests, & warmonger. See: W.R.Hearst's role in the bogus "Spanish-American" ""war""…(To this day, there is *NO* solid evidence that the U.S.S. Maine exploded by any reason other than accident/sabotage. *NO* solid evidence of *ANY* Spanish involvement exists…Yes, I know my shit, dude…Marijauna Tax Stamp Act, $100./ounce tax…The anti-mexican rascism of early anti-cannabis efforts…Gimme a break, OK?…I think that the "gov't" should take a "hands-off" approach to weed, and deal w/harder drugs separately. Yes, I'm aware that in 2009, more NH citizens died of drug/alcohol overdoses than in car crashes. 1/2 of those deaths were due to RX drugs! The other 1/2, mostly methadone overdoses…(the rest of the kiddies here need the education, so, thanks for raggin' on me. &No, my crown isn't "to" tight…I had to pawn it at Good Fortune. I don' need no crown nohow…*I has cheezbrgrz* *MEOW*…
SamFox

My apologies king if I misread your post.

When you said you were ashamed of every one on this thread I thought you meant our point of view of ending prohibition & changing tactics by regulation & education rather than continuing prohibition & the drug war.

Let me clarify on regulation. I am not for the fed gov doing that. I do favor state govs doing it. The feds have too much power as it is & meddle way too much in state's affairs.

Plus the only way to get control of the drug war is to legalize everything. The dangerous stuff like coke,heroine, meth, X & so on should be allowed, but connected to what I call Consequences Of Use education. Cannabis is the only drug that they have to lie about how dangerous it is. That cannabis is not a dangerous addictive killer means it should be RE-legalized & left alone like alcohol, tobacco & coffee.

I agree that cannabis should out be be RE-legalized. If we can make beer & wine at home why not be able to grow the much safer than alcohol cannabis plant?

To my mind prohibition of 'smoking' cannabis & industrial cannabis [hemp] is in place to protect the killer Rx industry, synthetic industries (plastics, synthetic 'supplements', rayon, nylon…), big cotton big oil & lumber… It's all about the $$ & protecting huge profits.

SamFox
http://www.endprohibition.ca Dana Larsen

There are many current police officers who have joined LEAP and no doubt taken flack from their co-workers and risked their jobs to show their support for ending prohibition.

If LEAP was to be seen as a group which encourages police officers to not do their jobs, their on-duty members could be fired or forced to quit LEAP.

Of course Brad Jardis is doing a brave thing, but for LEAP to endorse his actions would risk the jobs of all their other on-duty officers.
Norbert

I fully understand the pressure those law enforcement members are under. Yet, listening to the argumentation thread of John Cole at Freetalk Live the other week made me rethink my appreciation for that organisation.

He literally said that if an officer gets an order he has no right whatsoever to decline to follow that order.

What kind of mindset is that? Is a man who enters law enforcement to give up his consiousness? Give up his freedom? This would mean that, to have freedom for the citizens some men have to give up their "inalienable" rights?

I am of German heritage and I have to tell you, I heard that phrase more often than I would had love to hear it. It was the excuse of all the SS guys and petty dictators after the regime of national socialism (mind the word socialism) had broken down.

Now get me right, I do not say that law enforcement in the US can be compared in any way to the Nazis.

But the argument used by John Cole is just the equivalent of theirs to justify their deeds.

That should make him rethink his position. At least I hope he will.

Have a great weekend all.
Tim

This letter was sent to a Sheriff in another state, but says it all (edited for N.H.)

Dear Jack Cole,

I am writing you out of concern for the people of New Hampshire.

An incident occurred this weekend that places the sovereignty of our citizens, and the implicit authority of Officers of the Law in grave jeopardy. The actions that were allowed to happen are actually cause for your removal from office. I do endorse this type of action, because it is your fault due to lack of knowledge of the law and/or the oath the LEO take.

First, you must understand that they take their oath of office and this oath was to “uphold, support, defend and obey the United States Constitution”. If your oath of office did not include this phrase, then the administrator of that oath is in clear violation of Article VI paragraph 3 of the U.S. Constitution. If you did not know, they are actually in the “EXECUTIVE BRANCH” of government. You are the Executor of the Law. What is that Law? The U.S. Constitution to which you swore your oath.

Second, the 10th amendment of the U.S Constitution states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”. Federal laws -enacted outside the Constitutional mandate- are not binding to any states legislature or Citizens of the particular States. This was confirmed in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Mack/Printz v. United States (http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/95-1478.ZC1.html ). The only people that can be held accountable to this Federal Law, in my opinion, would be Federal employees or persons dwelling on Federal Property. I am pushing the envelope on the former, but believe I am 100% accurate on the latter.

Your states Legislature enacted a law allowing for the cultivation and use of this substance for medical purposes. This law is the Supreme law of New Hampshire and is to be enforced by the Executive/Judicial branch of your State, not the Federal government. In fact, the Federal government has no authority over any Law Enforcement authority or person in your state when it comes to this issue.

It is up to you to support and defend the individual sovereign rite of the people of every State. You will be one of them when you retire, do you want to be on the wrong end of illegal enforcement of un-Constitutional laws? I pray not sir, pray not.

To be honest with you, I do not encourage or support the use of marijuana in any way, shape or form. I am concerned with the distinct separation of powers, the Constitution of this Country and the individual Constitutions of each Sovereign State of the Union.