Waiting to Exhale:

“Law reform for marijuana can no longer be ignored,” says Prof Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, who believes our current prohibitionist approach is “ineffective, incongruous, obsolete and deeply unjust.” Speaking at the recent EU-CARICOM Law Conference held at the University Inn on September 26-27, she said the European Union has “led the way in rethinking the issue of marijuana, and more broadly, drug control. Europe has provided the intellectual leadership and the rest of the world is now following.”

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In an interesting presentation (see her full speech at UWI Today online), Prof Antoine said scientific research, empirical data and Caribbean public opinion all now support a serious overhaul of our outdated laws on cannabis. Our current laws criminalise both the plant and its users, and even patients taking the drug for medical reasons such as pain relief. Current laws also excessively and often unfairly punish small-level, lower income users who have received longer jail sentences than those meted out to people committing more serious crimes.

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Prof Antoine recently completed a two-year exercise as part of a team reviewing Caribbean Community policies on cannabis.  She was Chair of the CARICOM Commission on Marijuana, which submitted its report to CARICOM heads in July 2018. The full findings of the downloadable report are online (see Caricom website, Report of the Caricom Regional Commission on Marijuana).

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Rather than treating cannabis use as a criminal offence, it should be dealt with as a public health issue and/or a human rights issue, said Prof Antoine. Just as alcohol and tobacco are not deemed “dangerous drugs” but are controlled substances which are legal and regulated, so, too should cannabis be decriminalised and regulated, she advocated.

Prof Antoine said medical evidence establishes that cannabis is less harmful, or no more harmful than some other substances that are currently not prohibited or criminalised under law, such as alcohol; several studies have established this.

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That’s not to say that cannabis has no harmful effects. Prof Antoine said evidence shows it has had negative effects on adolescent brains, affecting memory, learning and attention, and may put some youth at risk for early onset of psychosis. Therefore cannabis is not recommended for young people whose brains are still developing.

But for adults who use cannabis, the CARICOM Commission on Marijuana found that on balance, the proven medical benefits of cannabis in several areas outweigh the risks.

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Marijuana has been used for medicinal purposes for more than 3,000 years. Medical marijuana is used for treatment of glaucoma and epilepsy. There are at least two active chemicals in marijuana that can have medicinal applications. Those are cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). THC has pain-relieving properties and is largely responsible for the high. People take cannabidiol by mouth for anxiety, bipolar disorder, a muscle disorder called dystonia, seizures, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and schizophrenia. THC extracts are used to treat nausea from cancer medicines, to increase appetites in AIDS patients, and for other uses.

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For most of our Caribbean history, marijuana was a free substance, grown naturally and easily throughout the region, and part of many people’s ethnic cultural heritage, noted Prof Antoine. Current draconian ganja laws were responses to international treaties which deemed cannabis a “dangerous drug” without any value, medicinal or otherwise, she said. “Harsh, criminal penalties were then imposed on cannabis in all its forms within a context of strict liability, meaning no discretion or mitigation is allowed. This was despite the lack of scientific or medical data to support this classification,” said Prof Antoine.

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She explained: “This is significant given that the harshness of the law was premised on this supposed egregious harm. There is credible evidence that its acquisition of an illegal status was also due to attempts to stifle competition with alcohol, which had just emerged out of prohibition itself. This classification, first in international treaties, was spearheaded by the US and was automatically followed domestically. Documents declassified and released to the public in 2002 illustrate that the US Shafer Commission, established by Nixon to cement marijuana laws, came to the opposite conclusion. Its 1972 Report to the US Congress challenged this classification, finding that marijuana presented little harm and could ‘not justify the intrusion by the criminal law into private behaviour’.”

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Prof Antoine said the CARICOM Marijuana Commission found that “the existing prohibitionist regime induces more harm than any possible adverse consequences of cannabis/marijuana itself.”

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She noted we can learn some lessons not only from the European Union but also more close to home, from Jamaica, which decriminalised ganja three years ago in 2015. She said “there has not been any discernible increase in use, or in psychosis cases. Further, criminal arrests have decreased, and Jamaica has begun to reap benefits from the cannabis industry.”