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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Rastafarian held with weed at rally gets community service

by

Sascha Wilson
2353 days ago
20190128
Makaan Grant, right with his father Eric Grant outside the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

Makaan Grant, right with his father Eric Grant outside the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

Rishi Ragoonath

“Un­til it is ac­cept­able to smoke mar­i­jua­na, it is still un­ac­cept­able and il­le­gal.”

So re­marked Se­nior Mag­is­trate Ali­cia Chankar as Makaan Grant, the Rasta­far­i­an, who was ar­rest­ed at the cannabis ral­ly at Skin­ner Park on Sun­day, ap­peared in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates’ Court.

The Mara­cas/St Joseph res­i­dent was or­dered to per­formed 80 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice af­ter he plead­ed guilty to pos­ses­sion of .6 of a gramme of the il­lic­it herb.

Grant’s ar­rest caused a com­mo­tion as some par­tic­i­pants of the ral­ly, host­ed by the All Man­sions of Rasta­fari, had a brief clash with the po­lice as they voiced their dis­ap­proval.

A sin­gle par­ent to two young chil­dren, Grant spent the night in a cell at the po­lice sta­tion. He was charged by Sgt Vin­ton Di­noo.

Ac­cord­ing to the facts led by court pros­e­cu­tor Cley­on Seedan, around 6 pm Grant was ar­rest­ed af­ter the po­lice saw him walk­ing across the field smok­ing a cig­a­rette of an un­usu­al length. “Boss is ah lil smoke,” Grant said as he was ar­rest­ed.

He told the mag­is­trate he was walk­ing to­wards the stage to record the speak­er to send for his brethren. “You bla­tant­ly flout the law,” scold­ed the mag­is­trate.

Re­mind­ing him that mar­i­jua­na is still against the law, she said, “We are hav­ing plen­ty dis­cus­sions at this cur­rent time, the hot top­ic.” The mag­is­trate asked him whether he felt a “bligh” was nec­es­sary be­cause of the cur­rent dis­cus­sions.

Grant said mar­i­jua­na was ac­cept­ed and used in his be­lief. “The cul­ture we come from, we grew up see­ing every­body do­ing it. We ac­cus­tom. We smoke to hum­ble our­selves, to re­lax our mind to cool our self down,” he said.

Grant claimed he saw oth­er peo­ple smok­ing in the ral­ly. The mag­is­trate told him that not be­cause he grew up see­ing some­thing meant that it is “or­dained or con­doned by le­gal per­sons.”

Al­though mar­i­jua­na has been de­crim­i­nalised in oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions, the mag­is­trate stressed that un­til the law states dif­fer­ent­ly in T&T it is still a crime.

Ex­plain­ing that it was not as easy as just mak­ing it law, the mag­is­trate said just like the breathal­yser, the law­mak­ers will have to de­cide what would be an ac­cept­able amount.

In pass­ing sen­tence, Chankar con­sid­ered that the amount was less than a gramme, but al­so that the of­fence took place in an open area and he had two pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions for sim­i­lar of­fences.

Grant was in­struct­ed to re­port to the Pro­ba­tion Of­fice to be as­signed his tasks on or be­fore Feb­ru­ary 4.

The com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice must be com­plet­ed by June 30.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter­wards, Grant said this ex­pe­ri­ence will not de­ter him from con­tin­u­ing to ad­vo­cate for the herb to be de­crim­i­nalised.

He said, “I just find we is be hid­ing this mar­i­jua­na thing and they have it down like it is the worst thing and they treat­ing it as a dan­ger­ous drug and a dan­ger­ous plant, but it is a herb at the end of the day. It has many dif­fer­ent mean­ings and use, you could use for it. It have sacra­men­tal rights, med­i­cine rights.”

Grant said the herb could be ben­e­fi­cial to every­body, in­clud­ing sick peo­ple, chil­dren and el­der­ly per­sons.

He said he smokes mar­i­jua­na to cool him­self and “to open my ap­petite, to open my brain cells to en­sure I think­ing the right way.”

He was ac­com­pa­nied by his fa­ther Er­ic Grant and Ronald Sam­my, a mem­ber of All Man­sions of Rasta­fari.


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