Cannabis advocates petition Trinidad & Tobago parliament to enact existing medical marijuana legislation · Global Voices
Activist <PERSON>, second from left, and other supporters of cannabis legalisation, outside Trinidad and Tobago parliament in Port of Spain, July 31, 2019. Photo by <PERSON>, used with permission.
<PERSON>, founder of the Caribbean Collective for Justice and a staunch advocate for the legalisation of marijuana in the region, has long maintained that it's unconscionable that Trinidad and Tobago's Ministry of Health has never exercised clauses to amendments made to the Dangerous Drugs Act in 2000, which allows for licenses to grow, import, export, sell and distribute marijuana, and regulates “the use, purchase, sale or possession of any dangerous drugs for medicinal or scientific purposes.”
Read more: Trinidad & Tobago set to decriminalise marijuana
In 2016, <PERSON>'s group started a petition asking for the government to legalise cannabis. They presented the petition — which has now garnered close to 12,000 signatures — to Prime Minister Dr. <PERSON>, in 2018. The government later announced that cannabis would be decriminalised as early as June 2019, but that has not yet come to pass.
Such delays prompted <PERSON> to upload a YouTube video asking for citizens’ support at a protest outside the country's parliament on July 31, 2019. “People who need cannabis,” she explained, “cannot have access to it”:
On the eve of Emancipation, the parliament is being recalled to discuss the Bail Amendment Bill to deal with the crime situation. We cannot deal with crime without dealing with ganja.
Trinidad and Tobago recently saw a spate of murders, one of which was the fatal shooting of an alleged drug dealer.
In her video, <PERSON> called for the repeal of existing restrictions on cannabis which might ease some of the pressure on violent crime. She says “it is time for peace, love and healing to return to Trinidad and Tobago,” and wants to reframe the public debate around cannabis, referring to it as “medicine”.
She said the government is “playing with lives” by dragging their feet on the issue of legalisation.
Activist <PERSON> holds up a sign that reads, “People with cancer needs cannabis oil now.” Photo by <PERSON>, used with permission.
I went to parliament on July 31 to talk to <PERSON>, where she and a modest crowd gathered behind barriers outside the International Waterfront Centre in Port of Spain, the capital. The small group of cannabis law repeal activists stood quietly — between other protest groups with different agendas — their only sound coming from an African drummer who beat out a steady rhythm of resistance on the eve of the Emancipation holiday.
<PERSON> and the group of cannabis supporters held signs and stated their case: “Cannabis is a plant — if they could ban cannabis, they could ban garlic!”
<PERSON> (JMF): Why is this important?
<PERSON> (NM): This is important because there are a lot of people complaining that they have relatives with Stage 3, Stage 4 cancer and everybody has now realised that cannabis oil helps. 957
So, while the government is saying wait until September [for them] to bring the legislation, that means a lot of people are going to die [in the interim] and suffer until this legislation is passed. And then, once it's passed, to be enforced, to be enacted, to be ratified, takes some time.
So what we're saying is, the legislation for medical marijuana already exists in Trinidad; we're asking the MPs [Ministers of Parliament] to bring a motion to enact the legislation.
<PERSON>: Why do you think ministers of health have failed to put it into action — to give people licenses for medical use?
<PERSON>: Mr. <PERSON> and Mr. <PERSON> […] are still in the parliament and have a right to answer that question, because we asked Mr. <PERSON> to write the regulations when he was health minister and he pretended he didn't know what we were talking about. We actually have correspondence from the legal adviser to the Ministry of Health that says yes, that is actually correct, that legislation does exist. You can see it; it's online, so I don't understand why Mr. <PERSON> is not writing the regulations and giving people licenses to import oil and to produce oil and to grow ganja. This is a right that people have and […] at this point we are very sure about the science, so we're saying, please stop delaying and give people a chance to heal. 892