5. Islands in the Sun: Jamaica and New Zealand to Study Cannabis
Reforms, Guam Court Okays Sacramental Smoking
drcnet.org
Almost a year to the day after Jamaica's former police
commissioner, Colonel Trevor MacMillan, called for the
decriminalization of ganja, the government of Prime Minister PJ
Patterson announced it will set up a broad-based national
commission to examine the question.
"Countries all over the world are being forced to give
consideration to the complex but delicate issues of social,
economic, cultural, and security policies which relate
to the issue of ganja," Patterson told the Jamaica Gleaner on
September 15th. "Jamaica can be no exception."
Patterson told the Gleaner that the commission, whose chairman is
yet to be named, will engage in consultations with "relevant
interest groups" and review scientific opinion and research
results about health risks and medicinal uses of marijuana. The
commission will study ganja's impact on social behavior, the
economy, crime and security issues, and how any changes in the
law could affect Jamaica's compliance with existing international
anti-drug treaties.
After considering such issues, the commission will recommend
legislative changes, said Patterson.
The prime minister's announcement comes in response to repeated
calls for relaxation of the marijuana laws in the island nation,
home to a significant population of Rastafarians who use "Jah
herb" as a sacrament. Politicians from both of the island's two
major parties, the Labour Party and the Peoples' National Party
(PNP), have called for changes. Late last year, Mike Henry, a
Labour parliamentarian from Clarendon, offered a bill calling for
both a study of decriminalizing ganja for Rastafarians and the
naming of Bob Marley as a National Hero. And the leadership of
the PNP's powerful 3rd Region has been lobbying for
decriminalization for personal use, the Gleaner reported.
Pressure has also come from church leaders and from the National
Alliance for the Legalization of Ganja, headed by Paul Chang.
Chang, who has been after the government on the ganja issue since
1994, brought representatives of the Drug Policy Foundation and
NORML, as well as researchers Dr. John Morgan of the City
University of New York and Tim Boekhout van Solinge of the
University of Amsterdam to the island for a series of forums of
February.
At that time, Chang told a Montego Bay forum that his group was
preparing for the commercialization of ganja in a fashion similar
to the Dutch model. Chang is also forming the Ganja Growers
Association "in anticipation of the law," he said.
Halfway across the globe, New Zealand is also, after two years of
delay, preparing its own study of cannabis decriminalization.
The parliament's health select committee will review health
issues related to cannabis, the committee's chairperson, Judy
Keall, told the Otago Daily Times (Dunedin) on September 13th.
Keall said the committee's inquiry will "inquire into the most
effective public health and health promotion strategies to
minimize the use of and harm associated with cannabis and
consequently the most appropriate legal status for cannabis."
The committee's work will lay the groundwork for a parliamentary
debate on cannabis this term, with decriminalization the main
topic of discussion. Under a proposal supported by Liberal Prime
Minister Helen Clark, persons caught with small amounts of the
herb would be subject only to a ticket.
According to an August poll of New Zealanders reported in the
Daily Times, a solid majority want the government to either
decriminalize or legalize cannabis for personal use. The UMR
Insight poll found 41% believe cannabis use by adults should be
punished with a fine -- not a criminal conviction -- and another
19% want outright legalization.
According to the poll, 36% of those surveyed had used cannabis,
with that figure rising to 70% for those under thirty. Among the
indigenous Maori, the number who had used cannabis was 56%.
The status of cannabis has become a political football in New
Zealand since December 1998, when another parliamentary select
committee recommended that the government consider changing its
legal standing. The then-governing National Party refused to act
on that recommendation and has continued to agitate against
reform, most recently working with an association of school
boards to launch a petition against decriminalization.
The petition drive has aroused the ire of Green Party Member of
Parliament Nandor Tanczos, a Rastafarian who has said he smokes
for religious reasons. He told the Dominion (Wellington) he was
"appalled" that the school boards would allow themselves to "be
so blatantly used for political mileage" in the National Party's
anti-cannabis campaign.
Neither does Tanczos believe decriminalization is sufficient. He
told the Dominion such a regime would result in "more people
getting busted than ever before."
Calling prohibition a barrier to effective drug rehabilitation
and education programs, Tanczos argued although cannabis is
widely used in New Zealand, it is the young, the poor, and the
Maoris who get arrested for it, not decision-makers. Even with a
ticket and fine system, he said, many people would end up with
convictions for non-payment of fines. |
