BRACEBRIDGE — A Bracebridge resident and OPP police officer found guilty of violating orders from his superiors not to attend a conference that discussed the legalization of marijuana has received his punishment.

Sgt. Dan Mulligan, who is a member of the Ontario Provincial Police’s Aviation Services Section/Helicopter Unit, has been ordered to perform 40 hours of unpaid duty on a charge of insubordination and another 24 hours of unpaid duty for discreditable conduct.

Mulligan was charged after he had been ordered not to attend the Not By Accident Conference, with the theme "Cannabis Legalization: Is this a trip we want to take?"

The veteran officer was found guilty in late January of one count of discreditable conduct and two counts of insubordination following a Police Services Act tribunal in late November at the OPP’s general headquarters in Orillia.

He was found not guilty on the second count of insubordination.

Neither Mulligan nor his counsel, James Girvin of the Ontario Provincial Police Association, were available for comment on the penalty.

However, in an interview with this newspaper after the guilty verdict in late January, Girvin said the OPP’s actions involving the officer showed the OPP was trying to exert “control over officers’ off-duty conduct” and preclude him from asserting “an opinion that may be contrary to their (the OPP's) opinion.”

“I think that it is an important issue. We didn't raise issues related to freedom of speech at this stage of the process because we felt very strongly that the legal issue was the OPP didn’t have the lawful authority to restrict an officer's off-duty conduct,” he said.

Mulligan was speaking at the Sept. 17 gathering on behalf of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a nonprofit organization made up of current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities who speak out on what they perceive as the failures of existing drug policies.

Mulligan's disclaimer that his views did not reflect those of his employer had been left off his biography on the meeting’s program.