Marijuana is a local crop. It grows wild. A marijuana plant was growing in our yard at #1 West Canal. We didn’t plant it but, the good friend who pointed it out to us also warned that we could be charged for the offence of cultivating it and, we would have a hard time proving our innocence. This is ridiculous but the good citizen, who was in charge of a large farm where marijuana was found growing in a remote section of it, would not agree. He was charged with the crime of cultivating the plant even though, the whole society knew him to be a man of honor.
I am already on record on the injustice of our drug laws although, I do not say that the state does not have the right to protect its citizens from the harmful effects of the use of a certain class of drugs.
What I have always considered to be an injustice are the laws which penalize users of prohibited drugs who are actually victims of their own folly. The state reasons thus: drugs such as heroin, cocaine and marijuana not only harm the individual because they are addictive but also, those who are dependent on them and, in some cases, are the cause of harm to other citizens through the impaired faculties and judgement of the users. They all have an adverse effect on the reflexes and judgement of drivers under their influence.
Drivers are affected adversely by the excessive use of alcohol in the same way but, the use of alcohol is socially acceptable.
The main issue is whether a citizen should have the right to eat, drink, inhale or smoke any substance of his choosing, knowing that he is responsible for the natural consequences of any of his actions. I think he should. Does our constitution give him this right? Not specifically. But the constitution gives him such individual rights as would make us believe that the specific right referred to is in the spirit of the constitution.
In any case, is there any moral justification for the state in seeking to protect the individual from self harm, to make it a crime for him to choose to buy the means of his destruction from those whose business is to facilitate him? The target of the state’s efforts at protection is the vendor but, if there are no buyers, there would be no sellers. Is the state therefore, morally right because it is expedient to criminalise the buyer? I think not. Why then does the Government of Belize have such a law? I think that where marijuana is concerned, the reason is historical.
The reason why the British introduced a law against the use of cannabis sativa (marijuana’s scientific name) was to stamp out the practice of the “natives” who preferred it to tobacco and alcohol for relaxation or to get high. Their purpose was to prevent competition with the drugs of their preference for commercial reasons. This they could do because the natives had no civil or human rights. That, dear friends, is the genesis of the existing law prohibiting the use of marijuana. Is marijuana harmful? Yes, it is. Do we want our children to smoke it? Decidedly not. Would you recommend it to students and young adults? Heaven forbid.
We have a National Drug Abuse Control Council, which is a department of government. Its function is to reduce the number of drug users through education of the populace about the harmful effects of each prohibited drug to their health. Yet, there are a large number of marijuana users, including policemen, attorneys, members of the government, judiciary, and even the clergy. We also have a religious organization called the Rastafarians, who believe that smoking marijuana helps them to meditate on spiritual things. Do you think we would become a nation of “potheads” if there was no law against cannabis sativa? Could it be that people believe that the law has no moral force and that all a user needs to do is exercise a modicum of discretion?
Many marijuana users are well adjusted and otherwise law abiding, productive citizens. We have the example of a well-respected gentleman who was a printer of a leading newspaper in Belize. It is common knowledge that he was a user. The job of a printer is a very lonely one. He worked all night from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays each week to meet a deadline, and he always delivered. I am not making a case for marijuana use because I think it has any virtues. Still, I have not heard of anyone causing a motor vehicle accident on the road while driving under the influence of pot.
When I was a young adult, I had a large circle of friends, mostly athletes like myself. Some of them smoked marijuana, and they behaved no better nor worse than those who didn’t. The football team I played for had one or two weed smokers, but you couldn’t tell from the way they played. Some of the other teams had quite a few. The players of one of the best teams of the sixties got together for a smoke (not cigarettes) before games. They never won a competition, lacking good management, but they often beat the best. It was suggested that they only played to win when there was a substantial financial reward to be had.
I am for rules to control marijuana use, not laws. It is bad for discipline. It makes you sloppy. Users are not alert. They can’t sustain concentration. We can’t have weed smokers in the army and the public service. It should be banned by sporting organizations and employers in general should have the right to decide whether or not to give them a job. I am not suggesting that smoking marijuana should become socially acceptable.
To get an idea of the number of marijuana users in Belize, we can start by finding out how many of our citizens are of the Rastafarian faith. Many of them are, which makes them criminals under our laws. Between the period January to September, 478 persons were remanded to Hattieville prison for drug possession and during the same period 293 were convicted of this crime. This number is 33% of the prison population. A reasonable extrapolation of the first number by a multiplier of 10 would mean that there are 4,780 users in the adult population. This is a significant number. I believe the real number is much higher. Regardless. They are all criminals under our law.
These people have done no harm. Many of them are good productive citizens that we have made criminals by having a law which we have inherited from our British masters and have examined and evaluated as to the need for it. Furthermore, it is costing us $10,000 per annum per inmate of the prison, which amounts to $1,000,000. To this should be added the costs of apprehension and court costs. To this should be added also the loss of what the productive citizens among those incarcerated might have contributed to society. To be considered is the attention that our law enforcement agency gives to dealing with this crime, which could be better used pursuing “real” criminals.
Recently Argentina has decriminalized the use of marijuana. Other nations will follow. I believe that we are at least as advanced in understanding what is good for our society as Argentina and, I submit that our society would welcome the withdrawal of the sting from our law governing marijuana possession.