Le­galise it.

The catch­phrase syn­ony­mous with the mar­i­jua­na de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion move­ment re­ver­ber­at­ed around Wood­ford Square in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, as hun­dreds gath­ered for this coun­try’s first ever Na­tion­al Cannabis Ral­ly host­ed by All Man­sions of Rasta­fari.

For ap­prox­i­mate­ly 10 hours, the il­le­gal drug ap­peared to be tem­porar­i­ly “de­crim­i­nalised” with­in the con­fines of the park, as gan­ja smok­ers from across T&T open­ly lit up in the shad­ows of the un­der-ren­o­va­tion Red House and Hall of Jus­tice.

Around mid­day, how­ev­er, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers were seen check­ing whether the or­gan­is­ers had per­mis­sion to host the ral­ly and to re­mind them that pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na is still il­le­gal.

“We just want to make sure that no­body has a mar­i­jua­na plant ex­hi­bi­tion. It has not been de­crim­i­nalised yet,” one of­fi­cer was heard say­ing be­fore they left.

On­ly a hand­ful of po­lice of­fi­cers re­mained for the event there­after, but they chose to pa­trol the perime­ter of the square in­stead of nav­i­gat­ing through the crowd.

The ral­ly fea­tured a mix of Rasta­far­i­an prayers and chants, mu­sic and speech­es by nu­mer­ous lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al cannabis ac­tivists and pro­po­nents.

There were no mar­i­jua­na or cannabis-in­fused prod­ucts be­ing open­ly sold, but you did not have to look hard to see it be­ing con­sumed.

While some open­ly smoked, oth­ers drank home­made gan­ja wine and con­sumed ed­i­ble prod­ucts with strangers whose on­ly pre­vi­ous con­nec­tion was their mu­tu­al love of mar­i­jua­na. Some peo­ple were sell­ing trin­kets and jew­ellery, while oth­ers ped­dled T-shirts, grinders, bongs, smok­ing pa­per and oth­er mar­i­jua­na para­pher­na­lia.

While the par­tic­i­pants main­ly con­sist­ed of mem­bers of the dif­fer­ent Rasta­far­i­an sects, there were al­so oth­ers from a wide cross-sec­tion of T&T so­ci­ety. At­ten­dees were treat­ed to per­for­mances from a cadre of up-and-com­ing and vet­er­an lo­cal reg­gae mu­si­cians and singers as the event dragged on late in­to yes­ter­day evening.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs and Laven­tille West MP Fitzger­ald Hinds, him­self a Rasta­far­i­an, was al­so present at the event. In a brief in­ter­view, Hinds not­ed that yes­ter­day was not his first at­ten­dance at an event host­ed by the move­ment. Hinds is cur­rent­ly a mem­ber of a Cab­i­net com­mit­tee tasked with con­sid­er­ing a re­cent re­port from Cari­com’s Mar­i­jua­na Com­mis­sion call­ing for de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of mar­i­jua­na for recre­ation­al and med­ical pur­pos­es.

“I am here to lis­ten and learn so I can bet­ter in­form the com­mit­tee to which I am a part as we go for­ward with this im­por­tant is­sue,” Hinds said.

While he said Gov­ern­ment was keep­ing an open mind on the is­sue, Hinds said he per­son­al­ly favoured de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion where per­sons do not face crim­i­nal sanc­tions for the pos­ses­sion of small amounts of mar­i­jua­na.

“The jail is over­pop­u­lat­ed with young men who would have been found with a small amount of mar­i­jua­na. It is re­al­ly un­pro­duc­tive,” Hinds said.

Al­so speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed was Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) leader David Ab­du­lah, who said his par­ty sup­ports de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion and he was per­son­al­ly part of plan­ning the ral­ly. Ab­du­lah said he was al­so con­cerned about the im­pact of crim­i­nal­is­ing mar­i­jua­na on the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

“The crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is stacked up against thou­sands of our young peo­ple who some­times are on re­mand for small quan­ti­ties of mar­i­jua­na. That re­al­ly does make no sense what so ever,” he said.

Al­though he said he was in sup­port of de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion, he ex­pressed con­cerns about how it could be ef­fect­ed.

“We in the MSJ don’t want a sit­u­a­tion where we get med­ical mar­i­jua­na or small quan­ti­ties for recre­ation use and we have big busi­ness and cor­po­ra­tions, ei­ther abroad or lo­cal­ly, cap­i­tal­is­ing on the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits of it and mak­ing bil­lions of dol­lars while or­di­nary peo­ple are once again mar­gin­alised,” he said.

Ab­du­lah said the is­sue of mar­i­jua­na be­ing a holy sacra­ment of the Rasta­far­i­an faith al­so had to be con­sid­ered.

Dean of the Uni­ver­si­ty of The West In­dies’ (UWI) St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus Fac­ul­ty of Law Rose-Marie Bell-An­toine, who chaired Cari­com’s com­mis­sion, was one of the fea­tured speak­ers at the event.

She ex­plained that for over two years the com­mis­sion stud­ied the is­sue around the re­gion and con­clud­ed there­after that mar­i­jua­na should be de­crim­i­nalised.

“From a per­son­al point of view, I am con­vinced that as a mat­ter of pri­or­i­ty we must change the law on cannabis or gan­ja. It is bad and un­just law,” Bell-An­toine said.

She said the gen­er­al con­sen­sus from around the re­gion was that it should oc­cur.

“The vast ma­jor­i­ty of the peo­ple we spoke to want law re­form. So there is over­whelm­ing sup­port,” she said.

In a brief in­ter­view, events man­ag­er for All Man­sions of Rasta­fari Court­ney Du Four ex­plained that the ral­ly was the first of many that will be held.

“We in­tend to go all over T&T to spread the mes­sage,” Du Four said. (See Pages A8-A9)