Fuad: Send cannabis bills to JSC

DR FUAD KHAN, Barataria/San Juan MP and former health minister, urged the House of Representatives to send cannabis legislation under debate to a joint select committee (JSC) of Parliament to iron out details.

The House debated two bills together, the Dangerous Drugs(Amendment) Bill 2019, to decriminalise use of the herb, and the Cannabis Control Bill, to regulate its handling by a Cannabis Control Authority.

Saying the Attorney General wants the legislation passed by Christmas, he suggested a JSC sit for a week.

Khan said the bill was a not as simple as was being made out, and that if the Government’s aim was to clear the courts of cannabis cases, a very simple amendment would have worked.

He said Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar supported the use of medical cannabis, and later clarified that she supported the general decriminalisation thrust. Khan’s remarks that the Prime Minister had not initially favoured decriminalisation prompted Minister in the AG’s Office Fitzgerald Hinds to shout, “Not true! Not true!” until the Speaker reined him in.

Asking whether the law was regulating cannabis or its active ingredient THC, Khan worried the legislation has lumped together many different substances as cannabis, but which have varying THC contents. He said the word cannabis did not distinguish between cannabinoid oil for medicinal cures (vomiting, depression, mood disorders), hemp, which can be used to make textiles and paper, and potent cannabis, with over 25 per cent THC content.

In light of a new $250,000 fine, Khan also wanted a clearer definition of what was a public place where cannabis cannot be smoked, urging MPs to get guidance from Jamaican legislation. Saying the bill as drafted creates much ambiguity, Khan said, “A JSC could flesh it out.”

Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi intervened to ask if all cannabis-based items would have to be set for THC analysis, at which Khan said hemp items look different and that magnetic resonance testing can make a differentiation.

Khan asked how would the police be able to tell if someone was under the influence of cannabis. Saying some measures in the bill were draconian, he said it needed more work. He said the Jamaican law rightly defines hemp as under one per cent THC content and excludes it from cannabis provisions.

Khan lamented the cost of attorney fees to people wanting to expunge their record of past cannabis convictions.

Cannabis advocate Nazma Muller told reporters at Parliament she agreed with Khan that the legislation should go to a JSC, but also feared this could delay passage of the bills, as could the time taken to set up the administrative machinery for the cannabis authority.