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Monday, July 7, 2025

AG’s weed release cases delayed until next year

by

Peter Christopher
2018 days ago
20191227
Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, right, and minister in the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs Fitzgerald Hinds, leave the Hall of Justice on Monday, as they set the wheels in motion for persons to be freed for having small amounts of marijuana.

Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, right, and minister in the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs Fitzgerald Hinds, leave the Hall of Justice on Monday, as they set the wheels in motion for persons to be freed for having small amounts of marijuana.

ANISTO ALVES

Free­dom did not come as ex­pect­ed for many who are fac­ing charges for small amounts of mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion, as the state seeks to ex­punge the records of those be­fore the courts for the drug which has now been de­crim­i­nalised in this coun­try.

In the hear­ing at the Hall of Jus­tice yes­ter­day (Fri­day), Se­nior Coun­sel for the state Fyard Ho­sein ex­plained that his team had on­ly re­ceived in­for­ma­tion from the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates Court and the Fam­i­ly Court con­cern­ing per­sons with charges which fell with­in the new ex­emp­tions in­tro­duced by the amend­ment of the Dan­ger­ous Drugs Act.

Un­der the ex­emp­tion, per­sons fac­ing charges for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na of 100 grammes or less should not face jail time but would in­stead be fined or or­dered to serve com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice.

On this ground, the state’s at­tor­ney sought to have charges against per­sons fac­ing pend­ing mat­ters for pos­ses­sion un­der 100 grammes dropped.

Even among the lim­it­ed in­for­ma­tion re­ceived, the state still need­ed to en­sure those in­di­vid­u­als on­ly faced sim­ple mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion charges be­fore their re­lease.

De­spite the dis­ap­point­ment, two To­ba­go chil­dren were placed on the path to re­turn to their fam­i­ly.

The two chil­dren who were on bail in the sum of $5,000 and $7,500 re­spec­tive­ly were con­firmed as fac­ing the soli­tary charge of sim­ple mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion.

How­ev­er, High Court Judge Nor­ton Jack was re­luc­tant to or­der their re­lease out­right, as he did not want to set an im­prop­er le­gal prece­dent.

The two chil­dren were in cus­tody in Trinidad as their guardians were un­able to come from to To­ba­go to sign for their re­lease via bail.

Jus­tice Jack was tak­en aback by this and stat­ed that such a sit­u­a­tion should not take place in 2019 where their guardians could not sign from To­ba­go.

Jack then ad­just­ed their bail down to $500 each and or­dered the state to take them back to To­ba­go, where their guardians could sign for their re­lease.

Fol­low­ing their re­lease on bail, he ad­vised that an ap­pli­ca­tion can be made for the dis­missal of the charges at their next court date.

As for the oth­er in­di­vid­u­als fac­ing sim­ple pos­ses­sion charges, they will have to wait un­til Jan­u­ary 6 to learn more as Jus­tice Jack ad­journed the mat­ter to that date af­ter the state’s at­tor­ney SC Fyard Ho­sein ex­plained they need­ed more time to ob­tain and process the in­for­ma­tion.

Be­fore mar­i­jua­na was de­crim­i­nalised and the law came in­to ef­fect on Mon­day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi in­di­cat­ed he would pe­ti­tion the court to re­lease at least 101 per­sons who were in prison for pos­ses­sion of small amounts of mar­i­jua­na.


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