RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Mar­i­jua­na is not a harm­less drug but rather a gate­way to crim­i­nal­ism, al­co­holism and ad­dic­tion.

So said Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don dur­ing a vir­tu­al mar­i­jua­na sym­po­sium host­ed by the Catholic Com­mis­sion for So­cial Jus­tice yes­ter­day. 

Gor­don, who ad­mit­ted to car­ry­ing peo­ple to men­tal health in­sti­tu­tions for mar­i­jua­na psy­chosis said the gov­ern­ment had cre­at­ed con­fu­sion when it “par­tial­ly le­galised” mar­i­jua­na by the pas­sage of the Dan­ger­ous Drugs (Amend­ment) Act, 2019 which de­crim­i­nal­izes pos­ses­sion of few­er than 30 grams. 

The new law al­so im­ple­ments tiered penal­ties for pos­ses­sion of 30–60 grams (1.1–2.1 oz) and al­lows the cul­ti­va­tion of up to four plants per adult.

But Gor­don said this move had se­ri­ous con­se­quences for fam­i­ly life.

 “In my pas­toral work, a vis­i­ble change in per­son­al­i­ty oc­curs with mar­i­jua­na use. The mo­ti­va­tion to ex­cel de­creas­es dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Those with a high­er IQ los­es fo­cus and mar­i­jua­na be­comes an ob­ses­sion so much so that it erodes a per­son’s per­son­al­i­ty and they slip in­to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty to sup­port their habit,” he said, adding “the use of mar­i­jua­na es­pe­cial­ly af­fects chil­dren and teens.” 

Quot­ing a study done by Buck­nell Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­fes­sor Ju­dith Grisel, a be­hav­iour­al neu­ro­sci­en­tist with a par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est in ad­dic­tion, Gor­don said heavy smok­ers show a re­duc­tion in brain ac­tiv­i­ty and 67 per cent of peo­ple were less like­ly to grad­u­ate from high school.

He said med­ical mar­i­jua­na was be­ing used as a Tro­jan Horse to get peo­ple to ac­cept the le­gal­i­sa­tion of the herb but one must al­ways be mind­ful of the risks in­volved. He pro­posed that med­i­c­i­nal mar­i­jua­na be grown through a li­cense and uti­lized care­ful­ly so that it does not come on­to the open mar­ket.

He al­so called for the de­vel­op­ment of coun­selling cen­tres as well as the es­tab­lish­ment of drug courts.

Mean­while, in­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor and At­tor­ney John Health said the amend­ments to the Act omit­ted sev­er­al im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion as there were many grey ar­eas. 

“I did not see manda­to­ry test­ing or labour laws for peo­ple get­ting in­to the in­dus­try. Our leg­is­la­tion is not spe­cif­ic as to the age of the per­sons al­lowed to grow mar­i­jua­na,” Heath said.

 He al­so said the Act re­stricts the use of mar­i­jua­na pub­licly or near schools but omits any ex­cep­tions for peo­ple who live near schools and may want to grow mar­i­jua­na. 

Dr Chris­tine De­cartes who spoke about mar­i­jua­na and risk-tak­ing be­hav­iours said there will be an in­crease in road ac­ci­dents and fa­tal­i­ties be­cause of the in­creased use of recre­ation­al mar­i­jua­na.

De­cartes said mar­i­jua­na im­pacts on in­di­vid­u­als’ abil­i­ty to en­gage in risky be­hav­iour. 

“It is detri­men­tal to our chil­dren. If chil­dren are fu­ture lead­ers will we want them to have poor de­ci­sion-mak­ing? As a so­ci­ety, we have to care,” she said.

She not­ed that mar­i­jua­na is linked with delin­quen­cy.

“Mar­i­jua­na is a gate­way drug and it leads you to go on to de­vel­op sub­stance abuse dis­or­ders. The ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple who smoke mar­i­jua­na are treat­ed for sub­stance abuse and risky sex­u­al be­hav­iours and mul­ti­ple sex­u­al part­ners,” she said.

How­ev­er, Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Glen­roy of All Man­sions of Rasta­fari Glen­roy “Bon­go Grease” Halls said Ras­tas have been us­ing mar­i­jua­na for gen­er­a­tions. He said how­ev­er that THC, the main psy­choac­tive com­pound in mar­i­jua­na that gives the high sen­sa­tion, can on­ly be trig­gered if the herb is burnt. He said peo­ple can ben­e­fit from the full use of the plant with­out burn­ing it. He called for a full ed­u­ca­tion­al cam­paign to be rolled out on mar­i­jua­na use and com­mend­ed the or­gan­is­ers for host­ing the con­fer­ence.

How­ev­er, re­formed drug ad­dict and en­ter­tain­er Er­rol Fa­bi­en said he was con­cerned that the ex­ist­ing laws had failed to pro­tect chil­dren from sec­ond-hand mar­i­jua­na smoke.

“Peo­ple are not al­lowed to smoke mar­i­jua­na out­side their home. My con­cern is about the le­gal use of mar­i­jua­na in the home when there are mi­nors and ba­bies in the same home. When you are us­ing it the smoke moves through the house does the law pro­tect mi­nors,” Fa­bi­en asked. Heath said no.

As­sess­ment man­ag­er of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty Van­dana Siew Sankar-Ali agreed that T&T must look at the reper­cus­sions of hav­ing the sub­stance in the home. She said mar­i­jua­na users who have chil­dren should ex­er­cise cau­tion as it was il­le­gal to have mar­i­jua­na near chil­dren.