WHAT sort of future do we have when young people will be incarcerated and scarred for life for a use of a plant that has so many benefits?
This was the question posed by spokesperson for the Ichirouganaim Council for the Advancement of Rastafari (ICAR) Peter “Adonijah” Alleyne as he addressed the second meeting of the Joint Select Committee on the Medicinal Cannabis Industry Bill 2019 at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Conference Centre earlier this week.
“As we sit and reason here right now, somebody is getting locked up,” he said. “Somebody is losing their freedom because of the use of a plant. It happens every day. Why are we so keen on locking and criminalising our people for something that the world is seeing the benefit of?” he asked the committee.
He made the point: “As in everything there are always negatives. You can drink too much water and kill yourself. Some people have lactose intolerance. Everything is not for everybody. But that certainly does not merit the kind of Draconian laws that we have to face.
“Our former colonisers and their family have now seen the opportunity to make billions and are rushing to exploit the same plant. However we, the former officially colonised people, seem to glory and continue to confine and fine people for the use of the same plant.
“We are creating mischief and social dislocation and suffering for our people for using a plant that has been around from before Christ. What is the reason for it? Can anybody say what is the logic behind it? There is no logic behind it.”
Saying that the story of cannabis was one of financial greed and racial profiling, he lamented that for over a year, the former administration would not respond to a request to discuss cannabis issues.
“Is it that we are still suffering from the scars from the Middle Passage and afterwards and we now have this compulsion to punish our own people?
“This seems particularly so in Barbados. As countries all around us are making some accommodation for liberalisation. The sacramental use being observed. Some measure of decriminalisation as well as cultivation. Nothing from this government... Instead, we are being told that government can do nothing because we are signatory to conventions. But our neighbours that are liberalising are signatories to the same conventions. So why is that a reason not to act in Barbados, but it is not a reason to act in countries like St. Vincent, Antigua and St. Lucia?
“The social engineers have told us that Barbados is an aging society. Have we considered what kind of future we have if there are so many old people around. We continue to lock up most of our young men. What kind of society are we making?” he queried.
He made the point that many persons are querying the difference in treatment of alcohol users and cannabis users. “With the world of information and research at their fingertips, they are increasingly seeing the massive hypocrisy at play,” he said.
(JH)