Two promising young people were exposed to what can only be called Ass-backward justice as the Police and a Magistrate failed to do the right thing in the confusing cannabis crisis in Antigua.
The Media compounded the problem by printing big and colorful, their beautiful photo in the news ported of the most well read outlet. The missing component is discretion, which seems only to exist at the Privy Council level.
Clearly the young people were experimenting with becoming local cannabis entrepreneurs, even as those employees who top up their meager salaries with a sideline revenue earner.
During this phase of converting a criminal activity into a revenue generating enterprise, where even being found with a cannabis seed used to send a person to jail, a period of education and compromise must be applied.
Antigua was one of the serious drug trans-shipment islands, until under the Stanford era, when Antigua became the financial center for the Drug-lords, which demanded a separation of product from finance.
The business of hard drugs is oncemore being accommodated in Antigua even as the island seeks to establish cannabis as a legitimate enterprise, seemingly for expatriate investment, or to get the Rasta vote.
The government failure in education and tolerance shows in this unfortunate seizure and arrest of the two siblings.
The Justice system both Police and Magistrate could have handled the matter by first advising the young people that a license is necessary, giving them time to present themselves to the Cannabis Authority to be legitimized within a timeframe.
This should be extended to Rastafari also instead of this false narrative about ‘sacrament’ as if Christians and everyone cannot buy ‘wine’ in a shop.
The Magistrate and the Police need to know that one cannabis plant can deliver a pound of the goods, but the four plant owner has no law protecting his ownership of the harvested cannabis.
Further, if each person is allowed four plants, the nine plants found, four each will only create 1 extra.
The whole Cannabis legal and operational system needs overhauling and perfecting to our island’s use and people’s revenue earning capacity.
