Ganja Reform May Not Be Silver Bullet, Says Obama

The con­tro­ver­sial mar­i­jua­na issue was one of many hot-but­ton top­ics United States President Barack Obama spoke on yes­ter­day dur­ing a youth town hall forum held in the Assembly Hall at the University of the West Indies (UWI). Arriving at the hall to a thun­der­ous uproar at 2:55 p.m., Obama showed how infec­tious the Jamaican cul­ture can be, as after just a few hours into his first vis­it to the island, he was quite ‘Jamaicanised’ and almost flu­ent in the island’s patois dialect.

“Greetings, mas­sive! Wha a gwaan, Jamaica? Big up, UWI!” he exclaimed after burst­ing on stage, receiv­ing deaf­en­ing laugh­ter and applause. “I have been mak­ing myself at home. It is great to be in beau­ti­ful Jamaica . I just like the vibe here. I feel right at home and grate­ful for the warm Jamaican hos­pi­tal­i­ty.” After address­ing the gath­er­ing for about 15 min­utes, he opened the floor to ques­tion and answers, as he was deter­mined to engage the young lead­ers of Jamaica and CARICOM in an inter­ac­tive ses­sion for the just over an hour he spent with them.

Of course, he was ques­tioned on his views on the legal­i­sa­tion and decrim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of mar­i­jua­na and the US’s pol­i­cy on the issue. But he cau­tioned that legal­is­ing gan­ja was not a “sil­ver bul­let” for solv­ing prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with the drug, not­ing that there are seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tions which must be giv­en to such a move.

WARNING

He added that although there appears to be many pos­i­tive out­comes which could result from decrim­i­nal­i­sa­tion, a con­ver­sa­tion must be held on pos­si­ble reper­cus­sions, includ­ing its impact on the illic­it drug trade, and even warn­ing that if legalised, a con­sid­er­a­tion must be giv­en that big com­pa­nies could very well take over and squeeze out the small man. He said poli­cies must first be devel­oped to decrease the flow of ille­gal drugs and guns across the region. Jamaica recent­ly passed a law to decrim­i­nalise the pos­ses­sion and cul­ti­va­tion of small quan­ti­ties of gan­ja. The pres­i­dent promised that once he leaves office, he hopes to island hop in the Caribbean.

anastasia.​cunningham@​gleanerjm.​com

See also : BEFORE YOU START COUNTING THAT GANJA MONEY:here’s Something To Think About.