Per­mis­sion to light up your small mar­i­jua­na joint law­ful­ly from 12.01 is Mon­day. That's when the re­cent­ly passed law to al­low pos­ses­sion of small amounts of mar­i­jua­na will be pro­claimed and be­comes ef­fec­tive. That's al­so when peo­ple con­vict­ed or re­mand­ed for pos­ses­sion of min­i­mum quan­ti­ties of mar­i­jua­na can start prepar­ing to seek re­lease from jail.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day con­firmed that Cab­i­net has ap­proved the procla­ma­tion of the Dan­ger­ous Drugs (Amend­ment) Bill for law­ful pos­ses­sion of 30 to 60 grammes of cannabis/mar­i­jua­na. The law was passed by Par­lia­ment re­cent­ly. Mon­day's procla­ma­tion of the law is the last step to­wards op­er­a­tional­is­ing it.

Row­ley said procla­ma­tion of the law will open the door for many things to hap­pen.

The "new state" which he said will ex­ist in­cludes al­low­ing peo­ple in­car­cer­at­ed for the min­i­mum quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na to be re­leased. Peo­ple will al­so be able to seek to have their records for pos­ses­sion ex­punged. While Row­ley said the law wouldn't al­low for par­dons in bulk, he as­sured the process will be "fair­ly ex­pe­di­tious."

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, who cre­at­ed his­to­ry by push­ing the mar­i­jua­na de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion agen­da and pi­lot­ing pas­sage of the law, told Guardian Me­dia the law will be­come ef­fec­tive at ex­act­ly 12.01 am on De­cem­ber 23. From then on, peo­ple will be able to law­ful­ly pos­sess 30 to 60 grammes of "weed".

He quick­ly re­mind­ed: "But re­mem­ber, they can on­ly smoke in pri­vate dwellings or struc­tures that aren't com­mer­cial build­ings. They can't light up in pub­lic places, near schools or sim­i­lar ar­eas."

In the lead up to Mon­day, Al-Rawi said he had been in touch with the pris­ons ad­min­is­tra­tion, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and ju­di­cia­ry to be­gin sys­tems to car­ry out the law where the re­lease of pris­on­ers and ex­pung­ing of records are con­cerned.

"The pris­ons ser­vice is cur­rent­ly con­firm­ing the num­ber of peo­ple on re­mand, or who've been con­vict­ed for the min­i­mum amounts of mar­i­jua­na to see what the po­ten­tial num­bers of those to be re­leased will be. An es­ti­mat­ed 8,500 peo­ple get charged for pos­ses­sion in Trinidad and TO­BA­GO an­nu­al­ly and this num­ber changes ac­cord­ing to con­vic­tion and re­mand fig­ures," he said.

The AG said peo­ple who will ben­e­fit from the law in­clude:

° Those un­der charge or con­vic­tion for 30 grammes: au­to­mat­ic re­lease.

° Those un­der charge/con­vic­tion for 30 to 60 grammes: a fixed penal­ty tick­etable of­fence with a $2,000 fine

°Those in this cat­e­go­ry who don't pay that fine must serve a max­i­mum 30 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. If not they're sub­ject to a $50,000 fine.

° Those charged/con­vict­ed for 60 to 100 grammes are sub­ject to a max­i­mum of 50 hours com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice or if not, a $75,000 fine.

Al-Rawi said af­ter the Prison Ser­vice con­firms the num­bers in­volved, steps will be tak­en to ask the court to have them moved out.

"I've spo­ken to the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and the fixed penal­ty tick­ets have been sent to the Gov­ern­ment Print­ery for print­ing. They should be avail­able from De­cem­ber 23. Peo­ple who seek to have their record ex­punged can write to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice them­selves. They won't re­quire an at­tor­ney to ap­ply for this. Once facts are cer­ti­fied, the record will be ex­punged au­to­mat­i­cal­ly," he said.

A good char­ac­ter cer­tifi­cate will show a clean record.

"The po­lice will have a very ag­gres­sive cam­paign to ed­u­cate the pub­lic on the dos and don'ts of the law, such as where mar­i­jua­na can be used, where, how much, etc. I've spo­ken to the ju­di­cia­ry and as soon as things be­gin to emerge, they'll deal with it," he said, adding that peo­ple can ap­ply to have records ex­punged soon­er than their re­mand date or via court ap­pli­ca­tion.

Af­ter records are ex­punged, par­dons can be ob­tained by ap­ply­ing to the Mer­cy Com­mit­tee. Ap­pli­ca­tions will be on a case-by-case ba­sis and their sit­u­a­tion will be checked.

"We'll move with alacrity on this," the AG said when asked about the time­frames.