28°C
The criminalisation of marijuana leads to unnecessary criminal records and increased costs to the justice system.
Chairman of the CARICOM Commission on Marijuana, Professor Wendel Abel, believes Barbados and the rest of the region can benefit greatly from the decriminalisation of small quantities marijuana as well as allowing the drug to be used for medicinal and research purposes.
In 2015 the Government of Jamaica amended the Dangerous Drugs Act to allow persons to use small quantities of marijuana for religious or personal reasons. Under the Act, possession of more than two ounces of marijuana is considered a petty offence and will result in a ticket. The act also allows for home cultivation of fewer than five plants.
Speaking this morning at the Marijuana Symposium hosted by the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Professor Abel, who is the Head of Department of Community Health and Psychiatry at the Mona Campus, said it would be more plausible for the region to consider decriminalisation as opposed to legalisation of marijuana - as was done by the Jamaican government.
He said the government can consider the imposition of civil fines for small quantities and implement a drug education or drug treatment court as opposed to incarceration or criminal charges. He also said, as it stands now, criminalising marijuana only puts additional burden on the criminal justice system.
“The reality is at it stands the laws of many countries of the region are archaic. They were highly discriminatory and very often were used to discriminate against poor urban young people, especially males and were certainly used by the police to discriminate against Rastafarians. They also thought in Jamaica that the laws previous to decriminalisation were draconian.
The simple issue is that the criminalisation of marijuana leads to unnecessary criminal records and increased costs for the criminal justice system. In fact since the decriminalisation of marijuana in Jamaica it has been noted we now have 15,000 less cases going before the court and that is associated with tremendous costs in terms of adjudication and administration of cases to the criminal justice system.”
Professor Abel also said that contrary to published research that points to marijuana being responsible for episodes of psychosis, there has not been any increase of persons having to seek psychiatric care for marijuana use in Jamaica since the decriminalisation of the drug.
He did say though there is evidence to suggest there has been an increase in the use of marijuana following the move to decriminalise but this was expected as literature has shown that the first five to ten years after a country decriminalises a drug it will result in increased use.
Speaking in reference to ‘drug driving’, a term which refers to operating a vehicle under the use of marijuana, Professor Abel said the government can put measures in place to reduce and contain drug use as well as to protect and maintain public safety.
RELATED STORY:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram