The pros and cons of the ganja debate have been copiously documented and more evidence of the harmful effects of the drug are coming to light. Some time ago, Dr De La Haye, president of the Psychiatry Association of Jamaica and clinical director of the University Hospital of the West Indies, stated: "Ganja can make you mad, so why take a chance and use it. We do believe that cannabis is playing a role in the level of violence in this country. Cannabis has THC, which brings out aggression in people." While fully supporting the passage to facilitate further research into the use of ganja for medicinal purposes, De La Haye is convinced that making it more accessible to the public for smoking would be courting disaster.
What we hear now is the shrill voice of John Q Public to "free up di weed, do not prosecute innocent spliff smokers through the courts". And the Government, in its innocence, has caved in and is trying to create a legal path to disrupt the current system of adjudication in a simple matter. Simple matter? Yes, because the Drug Courts were invented to provide the same result -- in that a first offender is taken before the Court and given a warning but without a charge, so there is no criminal record. Only hard-core offenders are brought back to the Court and offered a period of rehabilitation and given a charge sheet. It is a sad time when the Government is "bending over backwards" to satisfy the strident demand of illegal smokers, by manipulating the existing law to render it impotent in its present form by substituting a "summons" instead of a charge. No doubt we shall see more of these creative manoeuvres in the future, particularly in relation to financial malfeasance.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...ganja_17388668
What we hear now is the shrill voice of John Q Public to "free up di weed, do not prosecute innocent spliff smokers through the courts". And the Government, in its innocence, has caved in and is trying to create a legal path to disrupt the current system of adjudication in a simple matter. Simple matter? Yes, because the Drug Courts were invented to provide the same result -- in that a first offender is taken before the Court and given a warning but without a charge, so there is no criminal record. Only hard-core offenders are brought back to the Court and offered a period of rehabilitation and given a charge sheet. It is a sad time when the Government is "bending over backwards" to satisfy the strident demand of illegal smokers, by manipulating the existing law to render it impotent in its present form by substituting a "summons" instead of a charge. No doubt we shall see more of these creative manoeuvres in the future, particularly in relation to financial malfeasance.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...ganja_17388668
Comment