Deputy Leadbeater is a Director of The House of Green, a Guernsey-based company with interests in the cannabis industry, and has spoken openly of his desire to reform Guernsey’s stance on drugs.
He said that Deputy Prow, who was previously the Head of Guernsey’s Border Agency, had sidelined him from ongoing work into non-punitive approaches to drug taking and that his “insights” into the Bailiwick’s problems with substance use “were either not recognised or completely undervalued”.
Deputy Prow has declined to give media interviews on Deputy Leadbeater’s resignation, but released a statement in which he said that Deputy Leadbeater had been a “highly valued and respected member of the Committee”.
Pictured: Deputy Leadbeater is adamant that his own direct financial interests in the cannabis growing industry – as a Founder and Director of cannabis company The House of Green – should not exclude him from developing policies on cannabis.
Deputy Prow said the Committee, by a majority, felt uncomfortable about delegating responsibility for justice policy to Deputy Leadbeater.
“It is true that his personal business interests in the cannabis sector caused some concern amongst the Committee in terms of our work to review justice policy,” said Deputy Prow in a statement sent out by one of the Committee’s Communications Officers.
“This was one of the factors which led to a Committee majority decision to elect another member to work on the joint project board looking at non-punitive approaches to illegal drugs.
“Whilst this was clearly not the outcome that Marc had hoped for, I believe as a Committee we managed the potential conflict appropriately. Marc’s value to the rest of the Committee was evident, as the Committee had recently appointed him to represent them on Policy & Resources’ sub-committee reviewing the costs of the public service.”
Deputy Prow declared himself “fully supportive of the ongoing joint work with the Committee for Health & Social Care” and “committed to delivering the Justice Framework…including the consideration of non-punitive approaches to the possession of small quantities of illegal drugs.”
Deputy Leadbeater remains a member of the Committee for Health & Social Care and said he “looks forward” to debates on justice policy reaching the States’ Assembly in June 2022.
He said he would “continue to push for drug policy reform” and hinted at the possibility of submitting a requete to the States before the summer of 2022 to accelerate “the long-overdue cannabis debate” in the States’ Assembly.