Nazma upset with ganja bill

Activist Nazma Muller is upset with the cannabis bills laid in Parliament on Friday.

She said it is modeled after the Jamaican model for the decriminalisation of cannabis which, she said, is the barest minimum that can be offered in terms of what is available globally, and, pertaining to legislation, to redress what has gone on in the past.

Muller said: “The Jamaicans give you five plants at home. No where in the world do they specify the gender of the plant because everybody assumes they are female plants because those are the ones that produce buds that you smoke. So for this bill to specify male is just outright bad mind. It is just incredible. What are we supposed to do with four male plants?”

She added there is still the threat and the possibility of going to jail for possession as reference is being made to parents serving children ganja tea.

She said: “So if I give my child ganja tea and somebody reports me I can be jailed for five years. All of these things still reflect an approach that is punitive, harsh and oppressive, and there is no mention in this bill about the endo-cannabinoide system.

"We have receptors for those compounds that are found in the plant. So what you are saying to me now is, you are denying me my human right to use a plant for which I have receptors and which heals me. This is a human right that people have, a right to heal and medicate themselves with cannabis. It is just unjust and inhumane"

Muller vowed to take the matter up at the level of the United Nations and Caricom, while she said World Health Organisation is already examining a re-classification of cannabis.

She suggested Government repeal the sections of the Dangerous Drugs Act that refers to cannabis.

Muller said a lot of TT’s laws were made during the colonial era to control the population. “In 2019, as an independent republic, we need to get rid of these laws that are continually oppressing us. And the worst part of it is, even now, with the bill being laid, the (police) commissioner is saying he is continuing to enforce the existing law.”

Muller said no police commissioner can compare the number of arrests for ganja as oppose for robbery, murder, rape, domestic violence and children being abused because there is little or no detection, prosecution or conviction in those areas.

“But we can see how many people are still be arrested (for ganja possession). This is why the imperative is to move swiftly with this bill. Either rewrite it to legalise marijuana or simply repeal the reference of cannabis in the Dangerous Drugs Act. Because what we are doing with this bill is simply another form of oppression.”