On March 5, 2021, the Attorney-General, Honourable Dale Marshall, introduced for a 2nd Reading, the Drug Abuse (Prevention and Control) (Amendment) Bill, 2020. The proposed Amendment was summed up by the Attorney-General in this 9-minute clip.
Transcript of the excerpt:
[00:22:57]Mr. Speaker, in our Bill, we are. I want to go through the provisions of the Bill quite carefully, sir, because I want to make it clear that we are not decriminalizing the possession of any cannabis. We are not saying that if you are in possession of cannabis, that you are not committing a crime. But we are saying that if you are in possession of less than 14 grams of cannabis, that we will treat you differently. [47.2s]
[00:23:47]You see, sir, we still have to acknowledge that it is a crime. We still have to acknowledge that it is a crime. But we don’t have to do with you, what has been done over the years. So, Mr. Speaker, let us look at how we are approaching it. [20.9s]
[00:24:09]A person who is found in possession of 14 grams or less. [9.1s]
[00:24:27]If the police have reason to believe that you have 14 grams of cannabis or less in your possession, what we are doing is serving you with a notice. And this notice, sir, offers you an opportunity of discharging any liability by allowing you to pay a fixed penalty. [26.5s]
[00:24:55]So, sir, the point is, you could have gone to court, go through a whole trial, pay a lawyer, all those kinds of things, but we are leapfrogging that process and we’re saying, “look, young man, young woman, you found the possession of 14, 13, 12 grams of cannabis. Come, take this. Go and pay $200”. Two hundred dollar fine. So it is still a crime. There is still a penalty. The penalty far outweighs the value of what it is that you had. Far outweighs it, but it allows you an opportunity to throw yourself on the system’s mercy and say, mea culpa, I am guilty and you go and pay a fine. [50.9s]
[00:25:48]The original process, Mr Speaker, would have taken sometimes years because as a lawyer, I know you – long, long time you ain’t do one of those cases, but you have juniors who will be able to tell you this simple drug possession case; the man had two joints and three years we still in court. Countless adjournments and you go through this entire thing going to court week after week after week after week after week. The police come. The magistrate come. There is some problem. The matter adjourn. The case ain’t get heard. Takes up a lot of time. And then at the end of it, they get fined five hundred dollars. [39.3s]
[00:26:29]Sir, we are cutting out all of that. We are simply saying you’re found in the possession of cannabis, here’s the ticket, pay $200. So, we will have achieved one of the early principles or the foundation principles of law. You have a crime and there’s a penalty, and the penalty should fit the crime. And in our view, a two hundred dollar fine allows you to do that. [34.6s]
[00:27:06]But in the case, Mr. Speaker, of a person who is under the age of 18, different and very important considerations apply. You see, sir, it is known, medically, that marijuana usage in younger brains has a deleterious effect on that person’s development. But so does a criminal record, so does the criminal record, sir, and the criminal record does not have the effect of steering that person away from drug use. The criminal record does not have the effect of showing that person another way. The criminal record shows only that the government is a wielder of a big stick and we are going to administer this stick to you and hope, sir, hope, that it has a positive effect on you. Now, Mr. Speaker, when that case comes on three years from now, you get charged with a joint today and a case comes off three years from now, at which time you get fined. Where is the redemptive value in that? What is the, what is the positive reinforcing lessons to be learned from a penalty that is imposed three years down the line and in fact, for all of this time, you are in a straitjacket because you have a charge pending before the court. Can’t get a job. [111.9s]
[00:29:00]Now, sir, you know, a government’s obligation to its citizens is to provide them with every opportunity. Sir, there’s a hotel that employs a lot of Barbadians and a lady was asked for a Certificate of Character, but somehow she was interviewed, impressed the people and they hired her right away. And she breathed a sigh of relief because she had a cannabis charge. Well, you know HR, Sir. At some point in time, somebody from HR, Member for St. Peter, is going to be reviewing the file two, three years later, and they going be saying, wait, Patsy, we got to get this file, let we put this file in order. Patsy, we were reviewing your file – good job you know, we like it – we reviewed your file, but we need the Certificate of Character, we don’t know what happened, but it’s not here. And then the phone calls start. We start calling everybody in this room. What do I do? How soon can I get an expungement? Mr. Marshall, it was just one marijuana weed out by the dunks tree and on and on and on and on. [85.1s]
[00:30:27]This is not a Pearl and Fred story by the way. [1.9s]
[00:30:31]But, you know, this person and I have seen it. This person, their job is on the line. Everything about their performance says you are a valuable employee. But there is a rule in HR which says unless you have a Certificate of Character, you do not have a chance. And then we got to try and rush through. And HR knows now and they got to hide up, hide up, hide up, and sometimes, sometimes they give you two weeks to get it and you can’t get it and the job gone to the drain. Somebody’s brilliant career. It ain’t got to be a brilliant career as a CEO. It can be a brilliant career as a gardener, as a maintenance technician, as a plumber at a hotel. That person now is thrown out. [49.3s]
[00:31:22]Now, that’s not what our society should be doing. [2.6s]
[00:31:26]In my view, I don’t want us to get points for coming in after the fact and, and trying to help that person. Because it is after the fact. Our success as an administration should be measured with how we protect that person, which is our priora before the fact. So by giving an individual an opportunity, a short-order to pay a penalty, there is a quick correlation between offense-committed and a penalty. Offense committed and penalty. You feel it the same time. [38.0s]