Chairperson of the CARICOM Regional Commission on Marijuana, Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, has expressed her support for the legalization of marijuana.

Antoine, who is also Dean of Law at the University of the West Indies (UWI) was a guest speaker at a National Consultation on Marijuana held at the Goodwill Parish Hall on Friday.

She said that while she was “sitting on the fence” when the work of the Commission started, now that its work is complete, she’s convinced that the law regarding the use of marijuana in the region needs to change.

“So it may well be that we can argue about in what ways the law needs to change, and in fact, the report gives more than one avenue and as you heard, about decriminalization, legalization, we gave different paths to change,” Professor Antoine said. “I personally think it should be legalization and there are concrete reasons for saying that.”

She explained that the Commission’s report provides logical reasons for that position both in terms of social justice issues and financial issues.

“But there’s also the path of decriminalization, for those of you who don’t know, it would mean that it would still be an offence but it will not be a criminal offence. So, there’s that possibility as well,” the law professor added.

She said based on the findings of Commission, the vast majority of people in the Commonwealth Caribbean also believe that the law is unjust and needs to change.

“That was the clear message in our public consultations. It’s also the message we got from polls that we did….there is, I would say without any doubt, overwhelming support for law reform moving away from what we call prohibition, meaning, it’s totally outlawed by the law; you become a criminal, criminalization because of it,” Dr. Antoine pointed out.

She said research has shown that prominent persons in the region are supporting law reform on marijuana.

“It is also important to note how many very prominent persons in the region have come out in support of change, Chief Justices, Magistrates, Church leaders, Judges, Social Workers, Educators, Doctors, DPP’s, Members of Parliament, Senior member of the Bar, these are all voices across the region that we have harnessed and many of them have to do with social justice issues, others of course economics, some to do with the medical marijuana which is the buzz these days,” she noted.

Antoine revealed that some statistics in Barbados, showed that in a very short space of time, public opinion for those who want law reform grew to over 63 percent in 2017, “and I believe it is higher now.”

However, she said that in its report which was presented to CARICOM governments, the Commission recommends regulation of the sale of marijuana.

“We are suggesting a regulated approach, it doesn’t mean everywhere you go downtown you should be able to buy it,” she said. “We do understand that if you do legalize it, it might be experimental, people might want to go and experiment for the first couple months which is what the experience we are seeing elsewhere, but it intends to flatten itself out…”

She indicated that multi-nationals are, in fact, already in the region, “and what is going to happen, even in terms of trying to change International Treaty the Caribbean has an authoritative voice or can have an authoritative voice in changing because of the historical cultural significance on Cannabis in our part of the world we can join with Canada, Uruguay, Israel, these countries who have been ahead and really pressure to change International Treaty so that we don’t have all these money laundering and all these other problems we have…”

Antoine said the Heads of State should be working towards that.

“Not Jamaica trying to do it on its own, Dominica trying to do it on their own,” she remarked. “It needs to have an authoritative voice and have a proper road map.”