The great marijuana debate will officially be on next year.
Proposed legislation to address decriminalisation of marijuana should be laid in Parliament in the first half of next year - and Government has challenged the Opposition to support it.
Confirmation of the anticipated timeline for presentation of the bill to decriminalise “weed” and the challenge to the Opposition came from Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi in the Senate yesterday in response to Opposition queries on the issue.
Al-Rawi’s statements brought the issue of decriminalising marijuana full circle from May 2016, when he first told the T&T Guardian he was seeking to examine the statistical groundwork concerning the issue. At the time, while Al-Rawi received support for this, including from previous People’s Partnership attorney general Garvin Nicholas, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley had said the matter wasn’t discussed with Cabinet and Government wasn’t examining it. Up to July, Rowley maintained it wasn’t Government’s priority to legalise or decriminalise it.
But apart from calls over the years from Chief Justice Ivor Archie to decriminalise marijuana, the matter has been on Caricom’s agenda for almost five years, when territories including St Vincent, Jamaica and St Lucia spearheaded decriminalisation calls. Local marijuana advocate Caribbean Collective for Justice intensified the lobby following the last Caricom summit in July, approaching Al-Rawi and giving Rowley a petition on it. Since then, several public consultations have been held on the issue.
Yesterday, Al-Rawi said Government has begun consultations with stakeholders and getting feedback. He said Government will also hold public events to encourage a wider form of expression on the issue, which he said “has been in society for quite a long time.”
“We wrote 100 entities and received umpteen replies, from a broad cross-section, including the T&T Medical Association, Law Association of T&T, special interest groups. Some also called us, including private citizens. Having announced an intention to treat with this, we’ve had many people come to us.”
Al-Rawi said the information will all be collected and the matter will be ventilated “shortly” in public consultations across T&T to get the “widest form of understanding on the topic.”
He said Government would take it to the public domain as was done with another contentious issue - the Child Marriage Bill. He said he’d detail the sources of feedback when the public consultation is held.
“We hope the Opposition will give a position on this. We’ll welcome the Opposition writing to us on this and when we go public all will be invited. I hope on this occasion we’ll have some support from the Opposition,” he said.
Al-Rawi said no Green Paper or White Paper was proposed on the issue.
“The best way to deal with this is the way we dealt with the Child Marriage Bill. For far too long T&T has been stuck in ‘analysis paralysis’ and we’ve failed to address issues. So we intend to dive straight into this matter and get busy producing work.”
Asked to detail stakeholders’ feedback so far, Al-Rawi said, “I’m warmed the Opposition is finally alive to issues in T&T and we certainly do intend to produce our work in the public domain. What we don’t trust is the view of the Opposition in delaying and stymieing work. So we intend to go to the public domain as we did in the prison consultations and Child Marriage bill and get the advice of people in open forums, open microphones and open communications - and we’ll report to the people.”
He also said proposed legislation to address the protection of prison officers will also be laid in the first half of next year. The matter had figured in national debate this year following increased attacks on prison officers.
Al-Rawi added, “We’ve already drafted the law which came about as a work product with the Law Reform Commission, Prison Officers’ Association, the Commissioner of Prisons’ delegation and National Security.”
He said the draft was being fine-tuned with other national security arms.