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Marijuana and criminalization of our youth population

Mar 12, 2019 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Our young people represent our national engine of growth and should be treated likewise by the State. No effort is seriously made by the state to decriminalise the use of small amounts of marijuana for medical and recreational use.
Those who continue to support these draconian laws to incarcerate young people must come to the realisation that all across the world marijuana is legalised or decriminalised.
In countries such as Portugal, Holland, Uruguay, Antigua, Jamaica, Canada and the USA in 46 states, weed is legal, with the majority allowing for medical use. Recreational use is allowed in Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Washington DC and Vermont.
States that have decriminalised are Nebraska, Ohio, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and other states too numerous to mention.
My concern is the high-handedness of the Judiciary to continue to treat black youths as slaves in these third world countries. When I say black youths, I refer to all those who are not white.
Quite recently I saw in the press where a young man has been sent to prison to spend three years for having in his possession 12 grams of marijuana. When will this wickedness end? Then it is reported that the police kicked out the teeth from a Rasville youth and bruk up his jaw, because he ran when he realized he was under police surveillance – they chased him and almost killed him for having a spliff.
At the last CARICOM heads of Government summit, our President from Jamaica announced that there would have been noncustodial sanctions for those held for small amounts of ganja, unfortunately the laws remain and the brutality meted out against our youths is at this point unbearable.
Look at that picture of the youth with a broken jaw and lost teeth. Those who committed that act should be brought to justice, they are not fit to serve and protect our young people; they are a threat to our democracy. We must bring an end to police brutality.
It seems as though we are striving to live as primitives in a modern world.
There is a generation gap that exists between the young and old. The old cherish the use of rum and cigarettes – known killers of human beings – while the young adore the good Ganja herb which is for the healing of the nation.
We use our state radio and television to promote songs glorifying the use of the good herb, and then the state condemns the use of herb and use the Ganja law to create criminals of our youth. Lord, is it so difficult to understand how we are systematically undermining the development of our youth and the nation as a whole?
Times have changed. We are living in a new age – the age of information technology, and as such the world will transform. The activities of today’s youth were never dreamt of by the youth of the 1940s, 50s and 60s. The oppression of the Marijuana industry started with the extraction and use of fossil fuel. Marijuana was now being categorized as a narcotic substance, hence destroying an industry that built the United States of America, making way for fossil fuel and replacing a green economy.
It must be noted that in all these countries legalizing and decriminalizing marijuana, there has not been increase in criminal activities and less people will be affected by non-communicable diseases such as cancer, hypertension and diabetes.
Please educate and train these young policemen to serve and protect the citizens of this bountiful country.
RAS Aaron Blackman

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