Free up Ganja

[gogo]

Haydn Huggines, The Vincentian - 12 May, 05

Magistrate says no jail for spliff

Outspoken Magistrate Carlyle Dougan feels that the time has come for the Ralph Government to decriminalise marijuana.

The former Attorney-General whilst adjudicating a drug case on Tuesday, also suggested that marijuana exportation might be the answer to the decreasing banana revenue.

"Our people have to make a living and with the banana revenue slipping, an alternative must be found," he told the Kingstown Court, where a young man stood before him for possession of a burnt ganja spliff.

"If I was in government, I would negotiate with the Netherlands to supply them with marijuana," he added.

Dougan, who served as attorney-general under the James Mitchell regime, also noted that the governments of the United States and Britain as well as other metropolitan countries should regulate the demands made by their people for marijuana.

"While the demand remains, there would always be the urge to supply," he noted, while adding that the authorities in England and Canada were no longer taking rigid punitive measures when persons were caught with reasonable quantities of marijuana.

"We are trying to stifle our people. I think they should seriously think of decriminalizing the growing and sending abroad of marijuana."

Dougan made it clear, "nobody is going to get me sending people around there (jail) for smoking a little spliff [marijuana cigarette]."

He showed this consistency when he reprimanded and discharged the youngster for being in possession of a partly burnt marijuana cigarette.

Dougan however, made it clear that the police had their jobs to do and that he was only expressing his views.

The former Attorney General has always expressed his views in relation to marijuana. During a number of court sittings, as a lawyer, Dougan called for marijuana laws to be revisited.

The judicial and legal services commission, with the approval of government in January this year, appointed Dougan as a temporary Magistrate for one year.

Last year, Dougan was also appointed as a Special Magistrate to sit in the then Night Court held at the Calliaqua Magistrate's Court.

[D9_THC]

what country is this in?