Gail Alexan­der

Light­ing up a “joint” law­ful­ly may be ahead - but with cer­tain very strict lim­i­ta­tions.

Gov­ern­ment’s mar­i­jua­na de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion bill pro­pos­es that peo­ple us­ing 30 grammes of gan­ja or less won’t be ar­rest­ed - but it de­bars use in pub­lic and work­places and around chil­dren. Plus strict con­trols re­gard­ing med­i­c­i­nal and re­li­gious us­es are pre­scribed.

The bill pro­pos­es fines of $250,000 plus five year’s jail for vi­o­la­tions. It al­so lim­its home cul­ti­va­tion to four male mar­i­jua­na plants with a li­cence.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al Rawi who laid the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day ad­mit­ted it’s a “fair­ly com­plex” is­sue”. He said there are “care­ful safe­guards” in the Bill.

He, how­ev­er, de­clared, “ These Bills rep­re­sent the work of a pro­gres­sive Gov­ern­ment ded­i­cat­ed in the mis­sion of get­ting it done... whilst oth­ers have slum­bered we’ve toiled. We shall get it done!”

The bills are the Dan­ger­ous Drugs (Amend­ment) Bill 2019 (DDA bill) and the Cannabis Con­trol Bill which in­cludes es­tab­lish­ing a T&T Cannabis Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty.

Both re­quire a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote for pas­sage and can be passed with Gov­ern­ment votes alone. Al Rawi didn’t say when they would be de­bat­ed.

Al Rawi said, a state en­ti­ty - the T&T Cannabis Au­thor­i­ty - is pro­posed to ad­min­is­ter a li­cens­ing/reg­is­tra­tion regime to le­git­imise, es­tab­lish ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy for use of cannabis by per­sons/bod­ies en­gaged in re­li­gious, sacra­men­tal, med­i­c­i­nal and com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ties.

The TTCA will is­sue li­cences for ar­eas from growth to ther­a­peu­tic use of the “herb” - li­cences for cul­ti­va­tion, re­search and de­vel­op­ment, lab­o­ra­to­ry work, pro­cess­ing, re­tail dis­tri­b­u­tion, im­port, ex­port, trans­port.

On­ly cer­tain per­sons will be el­i­gi­ble for li­cens­ing and reg­is­tra­tion. There’s a guar­an­teed min­i­mum lo­cal con­tent of 30 per cent of own­er­ship for com­pa­nies and co-op­er­a­tives to avoid abus­es that oc­curred with multi­na­tion­al dom­i­na­tion in oth­er ter­ri­to­ries, Al Rawi said.

“While cannabis growth and its use has de­sirous im­pli­ca­tions for the na­tion­al purse and will sure­ly be wel­comed by the med­ical pa­tient and re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ties, Gov­ern­ment will cur­tail op­por­tu­ni­ties for abuse of the new li­cens­ing/reg­is­tra­tion regime. This is ef­fect­ed through the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of be­hav­iours which ad­verse­ly im­pact the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the TTCA, breach­es of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, un­law­ful dis­clo­sure of in­for­ma­tion, and undis­closed in­ter­est in busi­ness­es seek­ing a li­cense and deal­ing with cannabis with­out a valid li­cence.”

Al Rawi said da­ta from the ju­di­cia­ry re­vealed that over 2007 to 2018, some 84,668 cas­es came be­fore the Mag­is­tra­cy un­der the Dan­ger­ous Drugs Act for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na, pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na for the pur­pos­es of traf­fick­ing, cul­ti­va­tion of mar­i­jua­na and gath­er­ing of mar­i­jua­na. He said 71,964 of these cas­es were for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na alone.

He said, “Gov­ern­ment af­ter sig­nif­i­cant re­search, wide stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion and care­ful leg­isla­tive scruti­ny is of the firm view that it’s the cor­rect time to amend the Dan­ger­ous Drugs Act and for the strict li­cens­ing and reg­u­la­tion of the re­search, cul­ti­va­tion, sup­ply and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of mar­i­jua­na through the es­tab­lish­ment of a Cannabis Con­trol Au­thor­i­ty.”

The Dan­ger­ous Drugs (Amend­ment) Bill pro­pos­es:

• To de­crim­i­nalise cer­tain quan­ti­ties of cannabis and cannabis resin

• Pro­hib­it the use of the sub­stance in pub­lic spaces, all ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and places of work;

• To do away with the present pro­hi­bi­tion of the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the sub­stance to chil­dren in med­ical cas­es on­ly.

• That per­sons may now law­ful­ly grow no more than four male cannabis plants at his res­i­dence with­out a li­cence.

• Strict­ly crim­i­nalis­es smok­ing/use of cannabis or cannabis resin in a pub­lic place.

• A tiered pos­ses­sion scheme, abol­ish­ing the present regime where­by pos­ses­sion of any amount of mar­i­jua­na is an ar­restable of­fence.

• The tiered pos­ses­sion scheme will es­tab­lish law­ful lim­its for pos­ses­sion and use.

• Un­der the new scheme, a per­son found in pos­ses­sion of 30 grammes of cannabis or less will no longer be ar­rest­ed for pos­ses­sion.

• An up­per lim­it for law­ful pos­ses­sion of cannabis/cannabis resin prod­ucts will be 60 grammes.

• Per­sons with charges be­fore the court for the new up­per lim­it of 60 grammes of cannabis and 10 grammes of cannabis resin may ap­ply to be dis­charged and the crim­i­nal records of per­sons with con­vic­tions for the pos­ses­sion of the sub­stance will be ex­punged. They will al­so be able to ap­ply for a par­don un­der Sec­tion 87 of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

• Pos­ses­sion of more than 30 grammes, but not more than 60 grammes of cannabis ( or more than 5 grammes but not more than 10 grammes of cannabis resin) will be treat­ed by a Fixed Penal­ty tick­et sys­tem.

• The brunt of the law will be ap­plied on­ly where there is a re­fusal to pay the Fixed Penal­ty and on­ly af­ter the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vice as an al­ter­na­tive rem­e­dy is ex­plored.

• Spe­cif­ic penal­ties for pos­ses­sion/traf­fick­ing of Am­phet­a­mine, Ke­t­a­mine and Ly­ser­gic Acid Di­ethy­lamides (LSD).

Al Rawi said the DDA bill strict­ly crim­i­nalis­es acts in­volv­ing chil­dren.

“A per­son pos­sess­ing cannabis, even with­in the al­low­able lim­its, will be pros­e­cut­ed for hav­ing the sub­stance on a school, on a bus or school premis­es. He’ll be li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of $250,000 and to five year’s im­pris­on­ment.”

He said the Cannabis Con­trol Bill pro­tects chil­dren by crim­i­nal­is­ing cer­tain ac­tiv­i­ties in­volv­ing chil­dren.

He added, “First­ly, all par­ents, guardians or care­givers of chil­dren, please note if a child un­der your care suf­fers from a med­ical prob­lem for which med­i­c­i­nal cannabis can be help­ful, you’re re­quired to ex­er­cise due dili­gence and care.”

“You may be crim­i­nal­ly li­able if you fail to ob­tain a writ­ten cer­tifi­cate from the child’s med­ical prac­ti­tion­er, cer­ti­fy­ing that the child re­quires med­i­c­i­nal cannabis to rem­e­dy his ail­ment. Sec­ond­ly, to all per­sons who ac­com­pa­ny chil­dren to places of wor­ship or sim­i­lar en­vi­ron­ments, you may face the court if you cause/per­mit that child to use cannabis at a place of wor­ship, a sacra­men­tal dis­pen­sary or at an ex­empt event. “

The penal­ty for that is a fine of $250,000 and five years’ jail.

The bill al­so cov­ers ef­fect of the sub­stance up­on per­sons dur­ing their work and op­er­a­tion of cer­tain ma­chin­ery. It pro­pos­es to pro­hib­it per­sons, who, whilst un­der the in­flu­ence of cannabis, does any­thing which con­sti­tutes neg­li­gence, pro­fes­sion­al mal­prac­tice or pro­fes­sion­al mis­con­duct.

A sim­i­lar pro­hi­bi­tion ap­plies to any per­son who op­er­ates, nav­i­gates, or is in ac­tu­al phys­i­cal con­trol of any mo­tor ve­hi­cle, air­craft, or ship whilst un­der the in­flu­ence of the sub­stance. In both in­stances, the con­duct at­tracts a fine of $250,000 and five years’ jail.

There will be strict con­trol for med­i­c­i­nal use and re­li­gious pur­pos­es, he added.

“Re­gard­ing re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions, there’s the re­quire­ment for reg­is­tra­tion un­der the NPO Act 2019 as well as strict dis­pen­sary regime. Sim­i­lar­ly, on­ly per­sons li­censed as a med­ical prac­ti­tion­er may law­ful­ly dis­pense and ad­min­is­ter med­i­c­i­nal cannabis.”