Senator: TT not 'a nation of potheads'

Independent Senator Anthony Vieira, right, makes a point to Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi during a recent sitting of the Senate.  - Ayanna Kinsale
Independent Senator Anthony Vieira, right, makes a point to Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi during a recent sitting of the Senate. - Ayanna Kinsale

Existing laws on cannabis had ruined the lives of thousands of citizens who were no threat to anyone, Independent Senator Anthony Vieira said on Friday.

Vieira supported the bill to decriminalise cannabis, the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Bill 2019, in the Senate, and said he did not see the bill as opening up TT to becoming a “nation of potheads”.

“We have criminalised thousands of young men and young women who are no threat to society and who ordinarily would have stayed on the right side of the law."

Vieira said bill will right a historical and social wrong.

“Innocent, law-abiding citizens were caught up in investigation, being prosecuted, getting convicted, and punished as criminals,” he lamented.

“In my law practice I’ve seen so many good men running afoul of the law for doing something that caused no threat to society.

“More often than not men who were shy or of an artistic disposition, whose lives were bighted because of a personal recreational choice frowned on the establishment. Real lives are affected.”

He said the bill was long overdue.

“When you have a criminal conviction, that is it, you know.” He lamented the ruin of people’s lives, jobs and education for “just a little spliff.”

Vieira said cannabis was less harmful than alcohol and was once sold openly at parlours in TT. “The guys who smoked tended to be of easy-going disposition.”

Relating the herb's use to worship Lord Shiva, he said the Hindu deity’s eyes were often depicted as bloodshot and in heavy contemplation.

Saying he would not say if cannabis is haram or halal, Vieira said it was used by Sufis during Islam’s golden age.

For the sick and suffering, only cannabis gives relied, he said. Saying the THC in cannabis can help in weight loss, he quipped, “You don’t see fat Rastas, you know.”

Vieira did not see cannabis as a gateway drug.

He said the bill will allow people to avoid the criminal underworld in buying cannabis, and allows them to access it for personal, medical or religious use. He punned that it was "high time” to decriminalise cannabis. He hailed the bill for curbing dangerous designer drugs afflicting TT’s youth, adding, “This is not a case of anyone going soft on crime.”

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"Senator: TT not 'a nation of potheads'"

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