...Views against decriminalisation

The following are excerpts of the report of the National Commission on Ganja chaired by Professor Barry Chevannes.

THE COMMISSION heard from a very small but important minority, who expressed considered views that the law should not be changed. There were people who in their opening depositions opposed any amelioration of the law, but who on being posed questions by members of the Commission conceded that criminalising young people for small amounts or older people for medicinal use was not what they intended. Such positions, however cautious and reserved, are excluded from this Section, being considered part of the general body of opinion in favour of some measure of decriminalisation. We present only those of people who are definitively against it.

Ill-effects

The main argument among those in favour of the criminalisation of ganja possession and use is the negative effects they either see or have heard of. These seem to be of three sorts. The first, from their description of the symptoms, would seem to fit the now well-documented personality disorder referred to as ganja psychosis.

Having smoked it, the person loses control of himself, often behaving aggressively. But the aggression may follow only after other personality changes, including uncontrolled levity and paranoia.

In a letter to the Commission, two parents wrote of their painful experience of seeing their 22-year-old son gradually turn into someone they no longer knew. Their first sign of noticeable change was when "he began to appear amused at times when there was no apparent joke." With increased use, a "new", unusually 'philosophical' person began to emerge, expounding on irrelevancies," and manifesting mood swings, anger and frustration, "not entirely due to ganja smoking we must add in fairness, but certainly likely to be complicated by it."

Then came an aggressive stage, in which he threatened others and verbally and even physically attacked his own friends. At that stage he was smoking heavily. Now 26, he remains like this, a member of the family, but one who, compared to the son they knew, is like a "stranger in our house".

Proliferation

A second argument advanced is that decriminalisation is going to cause ganja to be more widely available than currently exists and more widely used. And if it is more widely used, there is bound to be more schoolboys using it. "Because, if it free, too much ruption and no behaviour, and dem just come and smoke in front of you face." Among the likely consequences then, according to this 32-year-old mother, is the loss of respect that young children ought to show adults by not smoking in their presence, in addition, to quote an inner city resident, more people smoking ganja will mean more people that "it sheg up."

Gateway

A third argument is that ganja is a gateway drug, leading to other substances, particularly crack-cocaine. Those who advance it see a progression from ganja to "seasoned spliffs" (ganja laced with cocaine), to crack-cocaine. Or, they see ganja as part of a "culture" of drugs. "Addiction didn't start from just a crack-cocaine, you know, it starts from little small use of drugs ­ tek a one beer, tek a drink o' rum, smoke a small spliff." Decriminalising the use of ganja seems a small step but it would lead to "a big blown out thing", such as now affect many communities.

Smoking

Many who are adamant that ganja should remain criminal see smoking as essentially a harmful activity, regardless of the substance. Tobacco is bad enough already, and to add another substance is to make the situation worse.

Resident Magistrate

The position of a Resident Magistrate of 12 years of service in many parts of Jamaica, including the west and the Corporate Area, was put to the Commission. Her Honour exhorted the Commission not to rush to recommend a change in laws "which our forefathers in their wisdom embraced, unless we have clear and sufficient justification for doing so."

She argued that many persons brought before the court, though admittedly a small minority, a mere one or two out of every 20, displaying violent, anti-social and aggressive behaviour, sometimes to the point of having to be restrained for a period of time, were according to their own families, acting under the influence of ganja.

It would be, she suggested, a backward step to decriminalise ganja, in light of the damage already done by tobacco, and in light also of the fact that "the jury is still out", where the scientific evidence on ganja was concerned.

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