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New Hemispheric Parliamentary Group Urged to Put Drug Legalization on Its Agenda and Islands in the Sun: Jamaica and New Zealand to Study Cannabis Reforms, Guam Court Okays Sacramental Smoking
The Week Online with DRCNet Friday 22 Sep 2000 The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue #152 -- Sept. 22, 2000 A Publication of the Drug Reform Coordination Network 4. New Hemispheric Parliamentary Group Urged to Put Drug Legalization on Its Agenda http://www.drcnet.org/wol/152.html#interparliament 5. Islands in the Sun: Jamaica and New Zealand to Study Cannabis Reforms, Guam Court Okays Sacramental Smoking http://www.drcnet.org/wol/152.html#islandsinthesun ================ 4. New Hemispheric Parliamentary Group Urged to Put Drug Legalization on Its Agenda http://www.drcnet.org/wol/152.html#interparliament The Interparliamentary Forum of the Americas, a newly created grouping of legislators from the 34 countries of North and South America, will spend part of its inaugural session in Ottawa next March debating the merits of legalizing the drug trade, if Colombian congressman Julio Angel Restrepo has his way. The Ottawa Citizen reported that Restrepo last week told a steering committee planning for the forum that he wanted legalization on the agenda, which already includes such topics as encouraging democracy, poverty and debt relief, organized crime, and the drug trade. "We believe the time has come to broach this subject," he told the meeting. Restrepo told the committee that stopping the drug trade in his and other Latin American countries was "virtually impossible" and that the vast profits at stake from the black market trade had kept his country in a state of guerrilla war for the past two decades. The Colombian representative also cited the laws of supply and demand in arguing that prohibition is doomed to failure. "The prohibitionist laws in the States in the 1920s are a clear example that violating the law of the market is equivalent to kicking the goat," he said. "Demythicization of this topic could be a great asset in the search for unconventional solutions to the problem of the international trade in drugs," Restrepo added. "These are the reasons... that lead me to propose to my colleagues at the Interparliamentary Forum of the Americas that the topic of legalization of drugs, until now treated as taboo, be explored. Legalization means depriving drug traffickers of the powerful economic ingredient that makes this illicit activity so lucrative," said Restrepo. Some members of the steering committee, which includes representatives from Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Grenada, and the United States, backed Restrepo's proposal. Restrepo's compatriot, Colombian Senator Antonio Guerra, seconded his call for debate, but also said that efforts to suppress the drug trade must continue. One of the two Canadian representatives, Liberal Senator Helene Hervieux-Payette, also expressed support for the proposal, noting that the Canadian Senate will also hold hearings on drug legalization. The Interparliamentary Forum of the Americas was created by the Organization of American States (OAS) out of a perceived need for hemispheric information-sharing and coordination among legislators. The forum has the same membership list as the OAS, but unlike the OAS includes not only governments but also opposition parties. Also unlike the OAS, the forum does not reflect the official policies of member governments. ================ 5. Islands in the Sun: Jamaica and New Zealand to Study Cannabis Reforms, Guam Court Okays Sacramental Smoking http://www.drcnet.org/wol/152.html#islandsinthesun Almost a year to the day after Jamaica's former police commissioner, Colonel Trevor MacMillan, called for the decriminalization of ganja, the government of Prime Minister PJ Patterson announced it will set up a broad-based national commission to examine the question. "Countries all over the world are being forced to give consideration to the complex but delicate issues of social, economic, cultural, and security policies which relate to the issue of ganja," Patterson told the Jamaica Gleaner on September 15th. "Jamaica can be no exception." Patterson told the Gleaner that the commission, whose chairman is yet to be named, will engage in consultations with "relevant interest groups" and review scientific opinion and research results about health risks and medicinal uses of marijuana. The commission will study ganja's impact on social behavior, the economy, crime and security issues, and how any changes in the law could affect Jamaica's compliance with existing international anti-drug treaties. After considering such issues, the commission will recommend legislative changes, said Patterson. The prime minister's announcement comes in response to repeated calls for relaxation of the marijuana laws in the island nation, home to a significant population of Rastafarians who use "Jah herb" as a sacrament. Politicians from both of the island's two major parties, the Labour Party and the Peoples' National Party (PNP), have called for changes. Late last year, Mike Henry, a Labour parliamentarian from Clarendon, offered a bill calling for both a study of decriminalizing ganja for Rastafarians and the naming of Bob Marley as a National Hero. And the leadership of the PNP's powerful 3rd Region has been lobbying for decriminalization for personal use, the Gleaner reported. Pressure has also come from church leaders and from the National Alliance for the Legalization of Ganja, headed by Paul Chang. Chang, who has been after the government on the ganja issue since 1994, brought representatives of the Drug Policy Foundation and NORML, as well as researchers Dr. John Morgan of the City University of New York and Tim Boekhout van Solinge of the University of Amsterdam to the island for a series of forums of February. At that time, Chang told a Montego Bay forum that his group was preparing for the commercialization of ganja in a fashion similar to the Dutch model. Chang is also forming the Ganja Growers Association "in anticipation of the law," he said. Halfway across the globe, New Zealand is also, after two years of delay, preparing its own study of cannabis decriminalization. The parliament's health select committee will review health issues related to cannabis, the committee's chairperson, Judy Keall, told the Otago Daily Times (Dunedin) on September 13th. Keall said the committee's inquiry will "inquire into the most effective public health and health promotion strategies to minimize the use of and harm associated with cannabis and consequently the most appropriate legal status for cannabis." The committee's work will lay the groundwork for a parliamentary debate on cannabis this term, with decriminalization the main topic of discussion. Under a proposal supported by Liberal Prime Minister Helen Clark, persons caught with small amounts of the herb would be subject only to a ticket. According to an August poll of New Zealanders reported in the Daily Times, a solid majority want the government to either decriminalize or legalize cannabis for personal use. The UMR Insight poll found 41% believe cannabis use by adults should be punished with a fine -- not a criminal conviction -- and another 19% want outright legalization. According to the poll, 36% of those surveyed had used cannabis, with that figure rising to 70% for those under thirty. Among the indigenous Maori, the number who had used cannabis was 56%. The status of cannabis has become a political football in New Zealand since December 1998, when another parliamentary select committee recommended that the government consider changing its legal standing. The then-governing National Party refused to act on that recommendation and has continued to agitate against reform, most recently working with an association of school boards to launch a petition against decriminalization. The petition drive has aroused the ire of Green Party Member of Parliament Nandor Tanczos, a Rastafarian who has said he smokes for religious reasons. He told the Dominion (Wellington) he was "appalled" that the school boards would allow themselves to "be so blatantly used for political mileage" in the National Party's anti-cannabis campaign. Neither does Tanczos believe decriminalization is sufficient. He told the Dominion such a regime would result in "more people getting busted than ever before." Calling prohibition a barrier to effective drug rehabilitation and education programs, Tanczos argued although cannabis is widely used in New Zealand, it is the young, the poor, and the Maoris who get arrested for it, not decision-makers. Even with a ticket and fine system, he said, many people would end up with convictions for non-payment of fines. Also in the Pacific, the Guam Supreme has ruled in favor of permitting marijuana smoking for religious purposes. Benny Toves Guerrero was arrested in 1991 at the territory's international airport with more than seven ounces of marijuana. Guerrero argued that he was a Rastafarian and the herb is a required sacrament of his faith. On September 11, the Guam Supreme Court threw out his case, a ruling his lawyer told the Honolulu Advertiser was a landmark case for freedom of religion. ================
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