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The marijuana laws

Feb 24, 2015 Editorial

It took 13 years for the United States to come to its senses and end Prohibition, 13 years in which people kept drinking, otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals and crime syndicates arose and flourished.
It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol. It has been even longer that the drug has been illegal in Guyana, a far cry from the days when people walked around selling ganja, hence the famous folk song Ganja Manny who sold ganja by the shilling.
The federal government in the United States is being asked to repeal the ban on marijuana. And in this country, there is a renewed call for its legalization. The ever growing Rastafarian community is becoming increasingly vocal for the legalization of marijuana. They claim that it is important for their religious activities.
There are others who say that they use the drug for medicinal purposes and indeed there is evidence that marijuana has its medical uses.
There are no perfect answers to people’s legitimate concerns about marijuana use. But neither are there such answers about tobacco or alcohol, and we believe that on every level — health effects, the impact on society and law-and-order issues — the balance falls squarely on the side of national legalization. That will put decisions on whether to allow recreational or medicinal production and use where it belongs — at the state level.
In the United States there was the consideration whether it would be best for Washington to hold back while the states continued experimenting with legalizing medicinal uses of marijuana, reducing penalties, or even simply legalizing all use. Nearly three-quarters of the states have done one of these.
In Guyana there is no consideration at all. Of course, there has been a slight modification in the law. The magistrate is allowed to forego a custodial sentence for a person caught with minuscule portions of the drug.
But that would leave their citizens vulnerable to the whims of whoever happens to be in the White House and chooses to enforce or not enforce the federal law.
The social costs of the marijuana laws are vast. There were 658,000 arrests for marijuana possession in 2012, in the United States, according to F.B.I. figures, compared with 256,000 for cocaine, heroin and their derivatives. Even worse, the result is racist, falling disproportionately on young black men, ruining their lives and creating new generations of career criminals.
The same applies in Guyana with its small population. There were no fewer than 1,000 arrests last year. Most of those jailed were of African ancestry suggesting that some degree of racial profiling is fuelling the arrests.
There is honest debate among scientists about the health effects of marijuana, but we believe that the evidence is overwhelming that addiction and dependence are relatively minor problems, especially compared with alcohol and tobacco. Moderate use of marijuana does not appear to pose a risk for otherwise healthy adults. Claims that marijuana is a gateway to more dangerous drugs are as fanciful as the “Reefer Madness” images of murder, rape and suicide.
There are legitimate concerns about marijuana on the development of adolescent brains. For that reason, we advocate the prohibition of sales to people under 21.
There are no reports of someone under the influence of marijuana going on a killing spree. There were fights over marijuana cultivation and there were murders as ganja growers clashed. Jamaica saw ganja earning for it huge sums of money. In fact, a few years back the drug was touted as the major export earner.
It is a currency earner for Guyana, too and forms a significant part of the underground economy.
Creating systems for regulating manufacture, sale and marketing will be complex. But those problems are solvable, and would have long been dealt with had we as a nation not clung to the decision to make marijuana production and use a crime.

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