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alexk
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Robert, 22, was preparing for his final law examination last July when he started to get an anxiety attack.
“I couldn’t sleep, my stomach was in a mess, I was feeling really anxious about the exams and I just could not focus and do the work that I needed to do,” Robert said.
So Robert decided to do something which helped him to overcome his anxiety before.
It was around 9.30 pm one Friday when Robert took his mother’s car and drove to a nearby “drug block”.
“I wasn’t a regular user but I called a friend that night and asked him if he had any. But he wasn’t home and he told me I could go there,” Robert told the Sunday Guardian.
Robert said purchasing the plastic packet of marijuana was fairly easy. He spent $20 for it.
When Robert was driving out the street heading to the Eastern Main Road to head back home, however, his life flashed before his eyes.
“As I drove out the street I heard a police siren,” Robert said.
He panicked.
“I still had the weed in my hand and I was studying all kind of things. I contemplated speeding off, throwing the weed out the window, all kind of things went through my mind,” Robert said.
What he eventually did was pull the car aside and wait for the police.
Robert said when the officers approached the car they told him they knew he had just bought some weed. By that time he had pushed the packet into his pocket. Robert was eventually arrested and charged with being in possession of three grammes of marijuana.
His mother was called to the police station. She cried when she arrived.
Robert ended up spending the weekend inside a station cell before being taken before a magistrate the Monday.
“That was the worse time in my life, I didn’t know what was going to happen. As you could imagine, I was even more anxious than I was before,” he recalled.
Robert appeared before the magistrate with an attorney and pleaded guilty to being in possession of the marijuana. He explained why he had opted to buy the drug. Because he had a clean record, Robert was reprimanded and discharged by the magistrate. He does not have the record against his name.
“I thank God for the way it turned out. I got a very serious bouff from the magistrate and she told me I was playing with my future but she was eventually lenient with me. I know I was lucky and that other people have not been as lucky as I was,” he said.
Robert’s mother was relieved.
He was able to complete his final exam the Thursday. None of his friends knew how close he was to missing it.
Robert also promised his mother never to smoke marijuana again after his close call though.
Robert was one of 1,976 males arrested between January and August last year for marijuana possession. The three grammes of marijuana he had in his possession were among the 830.55 kilogrammes seized by the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) for that period.
In 2016, local law enforcement seized approximately 1.2 metric tons (MT) of marijuana.
Processing these and other such cases have been a burden in our courts.
Courts overburdened by cases
In 2013, Chief Justice Ivor Archie questioned whether drug trafficking and drug consumption should be treated differently.
“The next suggestion is more controversial and lies properly in the realm of the policy makers but I offer these observations for consideration. After over a quarter of a century in the law, nine years of which were spent as a prosecutor actively involved in drug prosecutions and asset confiscation, I have come to the view that drug trafficking and drug consumption should be treated differently,” Archie said.
“Addiction is a disease and is as much a public health issue as it is a criminal problem. This is not a moral judgement although one might observe that marijuana consumption probably wreaks no more havoc than alcohol addiction, but we provide support for one and punishment for the other. The economic and social consequences of incarcerating large numbers of our youths for possession and/or consumption of small amounts of drugs are immense.”
He added: “Moreover, it is now appearing that the consensus about many of the assumptions about the effects of marijuana, in particular, is unravelling. So much so that CNN’s Dr Sanjay Gupta recently publicly changed his stance on the issue. In an economy where the state is the major employer and a criminal conviction is a bar to employment, we may be pushing minor non-violent offenders into criminality when they can be saved.”
Archie said the burden placed on the TTPS, Prisons Service and the court would be lessened if decriminalisation was considered.
“The burden on the police and prisons and the courts in terms of cost and human resource will be lessened if we focus on the scourge of trafficking, but as long as we have laws on the books we have to enforce them. We must take a long hard look at policy in this area,” Archie said.
Currently in T&T, marijuana is classed as a narcotic drug and psychotropic substance under the Dangerous Drugs Act Chap 11:25. This is the legislation that governs possession and trafficking of marijuana and other dangerous drugs.
A person found in possession of marijuana is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction in the Magistrates’ Court to a fine of $25,000 and to imprisonment for five years.
Upon conviction on indictment in the High Court, an individual is liable to a fine of $50,000 and to imprisonment for a term over five years, but not exceeding 10 years. Those penalties are the maximum range and are discretionary based on the amount of the drug found in one’s possession, along with previous convictions and other considerations the judge or magistrate may consider on sentencing.
Decriminalisation of marijuana is defined as removing or reducing the criminal classification or status of marijuana use.
Head of the T&T-based advocacy group the Caribbean Collective for Justice (CCJ), Nazma Muller, has started an online petition calling for marijuana to be decriminalised here. So far the petition has received more than 9,700 signatures in support.
“Jail is no place for non-violent offenders who break a law whose very basis was highly immoral and contravenes the constitutional right to freedom and to the enjoyment of one’s property, among others,” Muller told the Sunday Guardian.
“The prisons in Trinidad are already extremely overcrowded and conditions are inhumane. People in Remand Yard have been waiting for years for a trial date.”
She said currently it was possible to decriminalise marijuana use in T&T very easily.
“The Dangerous Drugs Act permits possession, use, sale and cultivation of marijuana—all that is required is for the Minister of Health to write the regulations by which licences can be issued. With numerous studies showing that marijuana has therapeutic and medical benefits and many countries moving towards legalisation or decriminalisation, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago must address the fact that as long as ganja remains illegal, it will always be under the control of criminal gangs because demand continues to grow for marijuana locally, regionally and internationally,” Muller said.
Robert said from his short stint in a cell at a police station he would not want others to face jail time for being in possession of drugs. He said he hopes to one day use his legal education to help others in this regard.
n To be continued