The last Attorney General in the Democratic Labour Party administration has questioned how the Government intends to shield the country from likely negative social impacts of medical cannabis, suggesting it was rushing through legislation in a bid to extract medicinal and financial rewards.
In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Adriel Brathwaite, who lost the St Philip South constituency to Minister of Agriculture Indar Weir demanded greater transparency in the legislative process.
Brathwaite joined with the opposition People’s Party for Democracy and Development (PDP) in questioning the basis for the incorporation of the Cannabis Licensing Authority or the privately-owned BIM-Medical Cannabis Ltd before the Medicinal Cannabis Bill came to Parliament for approval.
He said: “It caught me by surprise to see that a bill that has not yet been passed in Parliament but yet someone, has gone ahead and formed these two entities. It suggests to me that they [Government] have been having discussions with third parties even before the Bill had reached Parliament. Do I take it that we already know which plantations would be involved in the growing of cannabis?
“These are the things that we need fully ventilated. I would think that any cannabis authority would have come out of the legislation and the natural entity to establish a cannabis authority, would be the office of the Attorney General.”
Brathwaite declared that the Mia Mottley administration seemed to be preoccupied with not being left behind, ignoring such logistical issues as praedial larceny which have long plagued the farming community.
He told Barbados TODAY: “If you can’t stop people from stealing people’s potatoes, yams and other agricultural produce, how are you going to seriously police and prevent persons from walking into fields and reap persons’ marijuana plants?
“We have always had praedial larceny; we have not been able to wrestle it to the ground, so I am very curious as to what is being proposed in terms of ensuring the security of the plants so that we don’t have a situation where cannabis is more widely available to young people. What is to stop a school child from running onto a plantation and grabbing a few leaves and then we have a wider problem on our hands. These are all questions that need to be answered.”
With St Vincent and the Grenadines and Jamaica having forged ahead with medical cannabis, it appeared that Government is trying to ensure that they are not left out, even though there is “no clear vision to build out the sector”, the former Attorney General suggested.
He said: “The urgency with which Government is moving concerns me and we need to be clear about what we are doing. There seems to be a feeling that we are missing the bus because St Vincent has gone ahead, and Jamaica has gone ahead, and Antigua is sending signals. It is as if we do not wish to be left out but the Government needs to be clear as to what they are being left out of.”
Brathwaite contended that while there is enough evidence supporting the medicinal benefits of marijuana to suggest that the sector should be explored, he sees no evidence to suggest that the Government’s plans for the sector go beyond the exportation of plants.
He said: “I question whether or not Barbados has the capacity to do the extraction of the oils etc, to justify the pace at which we are moving. Firstly, we have to do lots of work in terms of the labs available.
“Are we thinking about just growing the plant and exporting the plant? Do we have to take this into serious consideration in terms of what exactly we are promoting?
“If there is such a thing as a marijuana industry, what does that mean? The Government, if they have not done it already, must look at the experiences of places like Colorado or just go to Jamaica and look at their experience in terms of the impact that decriminalization has had on their young people and ensure that our young people are protected.
“If there is a potential industry in terms of the extraction of the medicinal properties of cannabis, then the question has to be who we are going to partner with since we do not have the capacity. How do we ensure that these entities are properly licensed,” he asked.
colvillemousney@barbadosotoday.bb
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