Friday, March 29, 2024

PETER WICKHAM: Ganja politics

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THE RECENT DEBATE over the decriminalisation of marijuana has inspired a political discourse on several levels which speaks volumes about social change in the Caribbean.

 In 2014, the Office of the Attorney General commissioned a study of Public Opinion on issues related to the possible decriminalisation of marijuana as part of a wider study by the National Task Force on Crime Prevention on merits, demerits and impact of and decriminalisation. It is commendable that Government would conduct an investigation of this sort into a major social issue and CADRES had been entrusted with responsibility for reporting on the public opinion component.

One of the more significant findings related to use and experimentation with marijuana as well as other drugs that were included for comparative purposes. These data demonstrate that in 2014 43 per cent of Barbadians experimented with marijuana, while 67 per cent tried alcohol and 13 per cent cocaine.  This comparison is interesting especially as the data continues to reveal the extent to which alcohol is the drug of choice in the occasional and regular use categories as well.  In these instances, ten per cent or more Barbadians occasionally use and regularly use alcohol which is legally available to the age group of persons interviewed; while cocaine, which shares an illegal status with ganja, is considerably less popular among occasional and regular users.

 If one attempts to understand the use patterns of these three drugs it is clear that the illegal status of marijuana is not preventing persons from accessing the drug, although it could be influencing the ease of access. Moreover, the distance between those experimenting and those using it occasionally and regularly also tells a story of a drug that is clearly not as addictive as it is often suggested to be since only 24 per cent of Barbadians are regular users while 43 per cent admit to having experimented.

The larger issue emerging from the regular use data; however, is the fact that almost one-quarter of Barbadians are admitting to regularly using a drug that is categorised as illegal. Certainly, if the police were in a positon to properly enforce the ban on this drug it would mean the criminalisation of 60 000 Barbadians which is a ludicrous proposition. While the numbers of persons charged for possession do not approach that level, the aspect of the study which accompanied the opinion poll did demonstrate the extent to which the system was to some extent burdened with drug matters.

The preoccupation of our system with drug matters raises some important consideration, the most logical of which is the wisdom of our focus on ganja.

We need to ask ourselves if it is wise for us to continue to expend our scarce resources trying to criminalise 43 per cent of our population and indeed if our efforts are impacting at all, since there is clearly some distance between admitted use and prosecutions. CADRES asked 1 000 people if they use marijuana and the fact that 43 per cent of these were willing to admit to what is essentially an illegal action demonstrates the extent to which there is a national casualness related to the use of this drug.        

The other interesting issue that emerges when one considers this gap between admitted use and prosecutions is the matter of who exactly is being prosecuted and who is ignored by the system.  If we set aside persons charged with trafficking and distribution of large quantities, anecdotal evidence would suggest that there is a particular social stratum that frequently appears before the courts for possession of small quantiles, while there is another social stratum that is almost never seen. 

Sadly, one is left with little other option than to conclude that the justice system’s marijuana policies (albeit unwittingly) target the lower socio-economic stratum disproportionately.

Peter W. Wickham is a political consultant and a director of Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES).Email: peter.w.wickham@gmail.com

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