WHILE lauding the efforts of the key stakeholders in the movement towards the legislation of a cannabis industry in the country -Prime Minister Philip J Pierre noted that the journey to this point began a long time ago with several challenges to overcome.
Recently, Minister for Commerce with Responsibility for the Cannabis Industry Emma Hippolyte tabled a legislation in the lower house to eradicate the “archaic and draconian” laws that prohibited the use and production of the herb plant.
PM Pierre noted that several young persons were prosecuted and convicted for having “small quantities” of ganja in their possession, and at the time some of them having to serve jail time for the offense.
“The journey to where we are today …when we took that position is not to allow people to wantonly smoke in public and so on,” he declared.
The Castries East Member of Parliament said, he has repeatedly informed the “guys on the block” that smoking in public is an offense.
“But I want to calm the expectations that are arising out of this cannabis situation,” he cautioned. “There are some people who believe that the expectations and the country’s economy will change overnight and that is the way to go. It’s a way to diversify the resources of the country, but it is not a magic wand.”
Pierre added that, “It will not overnight create economic growth and economic development. It will help and will assist with structural development … but there is one thing that we must deal with, and it is something that really irks me as Prime Minister – the double standards that exists as far as cannabis is concerned and as far as many other things are concerned, including economic policy.”
The prime minster noted that up to now, “proceeds from the sale of cannabis cannot go through the normal banking system, up to today.”
He explained that the process cannot go through the Swift operations, since it is deemed “illegal” and regarded as a form of money laundering and so on.
“But in cities in some of the major countries, there are cannabis cafes, (where) people go in and sell and trade and put the money in the same bank that they say we cannot pass our money through if you sell it,” said Pierre.
Citing what he referred to as ‘double standards’, the prime minister declared: “It’s a kind of hypocrisy that really irks me. In several aspects of life; in sugar cane, in bananas, in tourism, in financial services, in the Citizens by Investment Programme (CIP) – and in any economic venture that we seek to be going into that may cause us to have genuine independence, there is some pullback.”
He continued, “There is a push back and sometimes you wonder really is (it) the motive (for) development or is the motive (to) control.”
Pierre noted that due to the negating external factors, it is prudent for the populace to be “adequately educated, so they can defend and they can protect their country when these attacks come and when these situations arise.”
He said, apart from the “red and yellow politics”, there are several other things that “we need to stand up (for) as a nation and fight for …and defend and protect. Because these islands are falling prey to circumstances that may lead us to a place where we do not want to go.”
Taking on the issue of climate change, the prime minister stressed that, up till now, the adaptation pledges that the bigger nations made “to keep the temperature increase to less than 1.5 degrees centigrade, they have not met these pledges”.
Noting that there must be more cohesion among regional leaders and countries to tackle these global extenuating circumstances, he said: “We have not developed an alternative economic policy to deal with some of the issues that we have to deal with, and that is because we have remained divide.”
Zoning in on the wider region, PM Pierre tracked the route from Venezuela to Cuba, Jamaica, and Guyana, stating that “the wealth of resources that exists in that region, you can imagine if that region had a serious economic integration that would cause us to deal with our own development …how or where would we be.”
In the face of all these complexities and peril, he noted, it is a daily struggle to deal with issues of high unemployment, climate change, natural disasters and so on.
The prime minister noted that the ‘super powers’ speak of high indebtedness from the smaller nations. “All the debts, most of the debts that we have incurred are because we have rebuilt after a natural disaster. So, they talk about high indebtedness …and with that high indebtedness we have to cut back on social policies,” he said.
Then, he added, they speak about rates of implementation, and with “rates of implementation you have procurement policies …(but) how can you increase the rate of implementation if your procurement policies are so tight, so tight of policies that are beyond us. But we have to follow those procurement policies”.
Summing up, Pierre asserted: “This bill is a step in the right direction, but I’m not sure whether the powers that be, not speaking of the local powers …will allow us (to gain) the full benefits of a cannabis industry.”