Making Cannabis a High Priority

by Sheldon Waithe

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We keep taking half measures, partially implementing things, never maximizing the full possibilities to be gained through a decision, especially when that decision proved to be a courageous one.

Whatever your perspective about this government’s decision to decriminalise marijuana in 2019 – and naturally, it is a sensitive subject matter, just as it is divisive – it took some serious mettle to push through a change to the law in a remarkably conservative nation.

For some, the bold step was one of maturity and forward thinking. Why are people being incarcerated for having a minimal amount of a plant in their possession, when others abuse alcohol daily, then drive vehicles, get violent and damage their health in the long term?

For others, decriminalization created shock and horror; it could be a gateway drug, the wrong message is being sent to the youth, how can we be serious about tackling crime but then create an “ease up” when the shipment and delivery of marijuana is central to our crime issues?? Mixed messaging perhaps?

Therein lies the problem. We have partially taken away the penalty, but there has been no implementation to fix the wider issues around marijuana in T&T.

The strategy must exist to develop a plan to build upon the decriminalization, one that creates a two-pronged approach: to address the continuing problems associated with marijuana when dealing with mass quantities that far exceed the 30 grams recreational use limit, as well as to maximize its potential for legal profitability, by building an industry around the initial decriminalizing decision.?

Five years on, we have done neither and it gives ammunition to the anti-marijuana faithful that now cite warranted concerns about the use of the drug amongst the very young.

In the first instance (this is not hindsight, just plain old common sense), there has been a complete lack of education and communication to ably support a decision as drastic as decriminalizing a drug.

As ever, we simply took a single action and hoped for the best. Less precious court time spent on petty crimes for possession of small amounts of weed, less people in jail. There you go T&T; we’ve taken progressive action.

But marijuana is still a drug and making it available in legal quantities necessitates education campaigns from the Ministry of Health, aimed especially at the youth. This will help ease the objections to its new legal status and the criticisms, because guidance is being provided on the dangers of its use.

It's not a case of issuing a pamphlet titled ‘So You’ve Decided to Ketch It’ but rather think along the lines of ‘Don’t Drink & Drive’, where the use in society is inevitable but there is affirmative action to create a degree of control. Such educational action can still be taken; indeed, it needs to be taken as the criticisms now link decriminalization of marijuana to violent crime (albeit without hard data).

What also needs to happen is the monetization of marijuana to help T&T’s revenue streams. Amidst the Forex woes and within the cries of lack of diversification, the opportunity to earn serious foreign exchange utilizing our natural resources of sun, soil, rain and farming knowledge, to meet increasing global demand for a product that T&T can produce in mass quantities, is staring us in the face.

Again, the ideology is not to produce copious amounts of cannabis for our citizens to consume as they sit on every street corner in a cloud – and on a cloud – of momentary bliss.

Instead, we need to execute the decriminalization to its full extent and export marijuana to tap into a global industry that is worth $9.1 billion US per year. Other Caribbean nations such as St. Vincent & the Grenadines have joined the party as medicinal use explodes, as new trickle-down industries such as beauty products, create the growth in the legal marijuana sector that is expected to reach 26.7% by 2028. Citrus and vegetables can never give us that type of potential and return. ??

Entire sectors can be lifted, with new ones created if T&T followed the example it set with oil and gas, by implementing the entire cycle of cultivating marijuana, processing it and manufacturing it locally for various uses, before exporting it. There would also be the added bonus that it would help remove the vilification of the plant within society. ?

Now, the legitimate concern is that this type of vision is already in place, that decriminalization is only the first step towards the creation of a proactive industry. In theory that’s great, however the fear is that its implementation would be tarnished with that global taint: cronyism. ?

In the ideal world, issuing licenses to grow cannabis for legal uses would be seen as a major seismic shift type of opportunity to empower many citizens to an unprecedented degree. But in the sober reality to which we have become accustomed but to which we disapprove, licences could be granted to the few, the privileged, the wealthy, the cronies. Worse, it could end up being controlled by criminal elements. Any talk of true diversification to benefit everyone would then be nothing more than blowing smoke.

As the standout natural resource that has given T&T its wealth over the past 62 years, dries up, unused arable land stands idle, waiting to be infused with the cultivation of 21st century thinking. It’s time to meaningfully act upon that brave decision and control, regulate and monetize Trinbagonian cannabis.?

?Sheldon Waithe is the Creative Director at Communique Media Services Ltd website: communiquett.com

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