At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al Rawi has laid two pieces of leg­is­la­tion in Par­lia­ment, that seek to de­crim­i­nalise mar­i­jua­na.

The bills are called the Dan­ger­ous Drugs (Amend­ment) Bill and the Cannabis Con­trol Bill.

They will both come up for de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives at a lat­er date.

In lay­ing the leg­is­la­tion, the AG said that be­tween 2017 and 2018, there were 84,666 cas­es be­fore the courts un­der the Dan­ger­ous Drugs Act, for pos­ses­sion, cul­ti­va­tion and gath­er­ing of weed.

Of that fig­ure, 71,964 were for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na alone.

He said that 9,553 mar­i­jua­na-re­lat­ed cas­es were brought be­fore the mag­is­trate courts be­tween 2017 and 2018, with 8,316 for pos­ses­sion alone in one year.

Al Rawi told the House that it is most­ly poor and un­der­priv­i­leged men who feel the brunt of the law un­der the ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion.

He said that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 500 peo­ple each year are un­able to ac­cess bail even though they were grant­ed bail by the court over mar­i­jua­na pos­ses­sion.

He told the Par­lia­ment that the cost to tax­pay­ers for keep­ing them in re­mand is as 'atro­cious'.

"The gov­ern­ment, af­ter sig­nif­i­cant re­search and wide stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion, is of the firm view it is the cor­rect time to amend the Dan­ger­ous Drugs Act," he said, adding that there will be and strict li­cens­ing im­plemtned through a Cannabis Con­trol Au­thor­i­ty.

"While oth­ers have flirt­ed or failed in 25 years since the pass­ing of Dan­ger­ous Drugs Act, please to wit­ness the lay­ing of two bills, the Dan­ger­ous Drugs Amend­ment and Cannabis Con­trol Bill," Al Rawi said.

The new law will main­tain the pro­hi­bi­tion of the use of mar­i­jua­na in pub­lic spaces, ed­u­ca­tion­al places and places of work.

It will al­low a per­son to law­ful­ly grow no more than four cannabis male plants at a res­i­dence with­out a li­cense.

Pos­ses­sion of 30 grammes or less will no longer be an of­fence.

Fixed penal­ties will ap­ply for pos­ses­sion of more than 30 gramme but not more than 60 grammes and for pos­ses­sion of five to 10 grammes of resin.

The full brunt of law will be ap­plied on­ly if some­one re­fus­es to pay the fixed penal­ty and af­ter com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice is ex­plored.

Per­sons will be pros­e­cut­ed for hav­ing mar­i­jua­na in school lim­its, on a bus or in a school­yard, even if they are in pos­ses­sion of the ac­cept­able amounts.

That penal­ty will be $200,000 and im­pris­on­ment for five years.

Any­one in con­trol of a mo­tor ve­hi­cle, air­craft or ship while un­der the in­flu­ence of mar­i­jua­na will be li­able to sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion car­ry­ing a penal­ty of $250,000 and im­pris­on­ment of five years.

Per­sons cur­rent­ly be­fore the courts for pos­ses­sion of up to 60 grammes can ap­ply to be dis­charged and have their mat­ters ex­punged. They will al­so be able to ap­ply for a par­don.

The AG said that eight types of li­cens­es will be grant­ed by the Cannabis Con­trol Au­thor­i­ty, in­clud­ing li­cens­es for cul­ti­va­tion, re­tail dis­tri­b­u­tion, im­por­ta­tion/ex­por­ta­tion and trans­porta­tion.

Strict con­trols will al­so be in place for med­i­c­i­nal use and re­li­gious pur­pos­es.

Dif­fer­ences be­tween male and fe­male mar­i­jua­na plants

Male plants es­sen­tial­ly pro­duce pollen which is need­ed for cannabis plants to nat­u­ral­ly re­pro­duce; seeds oc­cur when there are male plants in the mix. If you want to make your own seeds you will need a male plant. How­ev­er, if you’re grow­ing reg­u­lar plants and want to har­vest flow­ers, we rec­om­mend get­ting rid of any males as soon as pos­si­ble. You won’t be able to tell them apart un­til they be­gin to flower, which is when plants be­gin to show their sex. Male weed plants grow “balls” that open up to let their pollen out, end­ing up look­ing like a small bunch of flow­ers. You’ll need to get rid of them way be­fore this hap­pens. If they man­age to re­lease their pollen it’ll be too late. They can take up to three weeks to burst. If you’re still not sure how to tell them apart, male flow­ers do not have any pis­tils on them at all.

Fe­male plants are ba­si­cal­ly what every­one is af­ter when grow­ing cannabis, as these are the ones that make buds, which is the part of the plant that con­tains the most THC. With just one male plant and a minis­cule amount of pollen, your plants might end up fill­ing their flow­ers with seeds. If you have male and fe­male plants in the same grow­ing area, the buds grown there will on­ly pro­duce seeds so you won’t be able to smoke any of it. You can tell fe­males apart due to the fact that their flow­ers don’t ful­ly close, they’re ac­tu­al­ly quite open and they pro­duce lit­tle hairs called pis­tils. They’re in­cred­i­bly easy to rec­og­nize, as the first thing they pro­duce are their pis­tils, which male plants do not have at all.