Cannabis and Belize

The last I came across news on Belize and its cannabis legalization initiatives was in 2021 at the height of the fake pandemic Covid. In February 2021, Breaking News Belize reported that marijuana legalization discussions were heating in the first virtual town hall of the government, with plans to complete regulations in two months. The next I heard was that an amendment had been introduced in the House of Representatives in July 2021 by the Minister of New Growth Industries. The amendment sought to establish regulations for businesses in the cannabis industry. Licensing and registration with oversight from a Commission would allow persons to cultivate, process, distribute and deliver cannabis across the country for adult use.

Belize is a beautiful country, as I have heard, with tourism being one of its major industries. The tropical climate of Belize will surely produce good quality cannabis that as a sustainable renewable crop can spawn multiple sustainable industries through sustainable economics, provide vast benefits in combating climate change and bringing precious revenue to the country which I assume is under threat from global warming and rising sea levels, besides the threat of synthetic drugs and alcohol.

The fake pandemic Covid, created by the industries opposed to cannabis, may have put the pause button on the cannabis legalization initiatives of many nations, and may have taken humanity a few steps backwards in its battle against global warming, specifically with the flooding of the world with synthetic pharmaceutical drugs and non-biodegradable petrochemical based plastics used for packaging synthetic medicines, besides masks, sanitizers, PPE kits, and so on...Nations like Belize, who are directly in the line of impacts of climate change, must push for complete legalization of cannabis as it is one of the last hopes to save humanity from human induced climate catastrophe, especially the most vulnerable nations and peoples of the world, besides the millions of other life forms that suffer for the folly of the few.

Related articles

https://www.breakingbelizenews.com/2021/01/28/discussion-marijuana-legalization-heats-up-in-first-virtual-town-hall-ministry-to-complete-regulations-within-two-months/

'During the sitting of the House of Representatives last Friday, the Minister of New Growth Industries, Hon. Kareem Musa, introduced a historic amendment to provide for the legalization of marijuana in Belize.

The act amends the Misuse of Drug Act, 103, to establish provision for the licensing and registration of enterprises operating in the cannabis industry. These special licenses, which will be granted by an Industrial Hemp and Cannabis Control Commission, will allow persons to cultivate, process, distribute and deliver cannabis across the country for adult use.'

https://amandala.com.bz/news/bill-to-legalize-it-introduced/

Raju the Plastic Scrap Collector

One day as I was walking around my place in Kumbanad, I came across a laptop bag in a relatively good condition. I remembered seeing a man walking past my house, pushing his bicycle carrying plastic bottles and other plastic waste. I decided that I would ask him the next I ran into him if the bag could be of any use to him.

He usually set off at around 6.45am from his house on top of the hill. I never saw him riding his cycle down. He was usually walking, smoking a beedi, and pushing his cycle. He sometimes went back to his house in the afternoon for food and rest before getting back to work again. His workday ended around 8.00pm in the evening, when he returned smoking a beedi, again pushing his cycle uphill to his house rather than riding it. On his way back, he generally had a few pieces of plastic scrap on his cycle, hanging from a gunny sack or placed on the carrier. We had run into each other a few times in the past three four years and had started acknowledging each other.

The next time I saw him, I asked him if he wanted the discarded laptop bag, and he said that he would take it. I asked him if he wanted the plastic and glass bottles that I generally came across on my property, mostly drinking water bottles or empty alcohol bottles that people passing by on the street tossed over the wall into my compound. He said that he would take the plastic bottles but not the glass ones since there was no scrap value for glass bottles. I was surprised to hear that. I told him that in Bengaluru glass bottles fetched a decent price of at least a rupee or two per bottle at the scrap yard. He said that around our place in Kumbanad, nobody was interested in glass bottles. I started placing the plastic bottles that I came across on the compound wall and he would pick them up the next time he passed by.

Gradually, from people around the place I gathered that his name was Raju. He lived alone in a hut on top of the hill. His mother had died when he was quite young, after which some people who did not have children had taken him away to another place where they looked after him for a few years before he returned back to stay alone in his hut. He had a sister who was married and lived with her family elsewhere. Most people who spoke about him said that he was not completely normal. People said that some money had been deposited into his account by those who had looked after him after his mother's death and that his sister or uncle had got him to sign and taken away the money.

I started speaking to him whenever I came across him. If he was passing by when I was clearing the wild vegetation that had grown since the last monsoon, I usually waved to him, and he would acknowledge it. Slowly, we started exchanging the typical civilities like - did you have your morning tea?

Raju had a wild Jimi Hendrix kind of look about him. He had a mop of curly hair on his head and an unshaved beard that was not thick. He had a youthful appearance about him, and I judged him to be in his late thirties. He generally wore a half shirt or t-shirt with his mundu and sandals. He was quite often smoking his beedi. He usually had his cycle with him though there were times when he walked to work without it.

As we started speaking more often, I learnt from him that a kilo of plastic waste fetched about Rs. 50. He would collect plastic through the day and deposit it at a scrap yard in Eraviperoor which was about 6-7 km from my place. Old women sometimes gave him a meal and he told me the names of a few who I was not familiar with. He said that my grandmother also used to feed him sometimes when he was young. He used to repeat many of the same things every time we meet. He almost always told me how my grandfather used to go out to work on the farm with only a towel around his waist, about where the old cowshed used to be, and how my grandfather had caught him one day on top of a tree trying to steal bird's eggs and asked him to come down. He seemed to be completely naive when it came to numbers and anything outside his world. When I told him that Bengaluru was about 650km away and Kochi about 120km away, he asked me which was further. He then asked me if Tiruvalla which was about 10km away was further away than Kochi. I was astonished by these questions and wondered whether he was pretending to be naive about this or genuinely ignorant. I started sharing my beedis with him whenever we met and, sometimes, we sat near the gate and spoke. He would abruptly get up and leave in the course of a conversation without saying another word. My mother gave him some plum cake one Christmas and he really liked it. He started asking for plum cake during Christmas after that and my mother made it a point to pack some for him whenever we were there. If he saw me working outdoors on his way to work he sometimes imitated an old lady's voice asking 'Mone, did you have your tea?' and when I looked up he would be standing on the other side of the wall with a big grin on his face.

Raju was like the local obituary reporter. Every time we met, he would tell me who had died recently in the vicinity, where and how. He more or less knew every house in the area. I, on the other hand, was only familiar with a few families since I had spent most of my life in Bengaluru. He would stop by and sit near my gate in the evening on his way back home if he spotted me. In his conversations he would make fun of all the rich people around gathering so much money which they cannot even take with them when they die. His job was extremely unrewarding and painful. He would constantly move around in the blazing sun throughout the day, covering distances of 20-30km on foot or cycle collecting plastic from wherever he found it and I doubted whether he made even 50 rupees in a day. When I met him sometimes in the afternoon, he would be breathing rapidly from the heat of the day and his work.

Around my place - and this, I think, is the story in much of Kerala - there were no means of plastic waste disposal until very recently. Even as the amount of plastic usage increased exponentially, and the government tried all sorts of plastic bans, almost no local panchayat had a system in place to collect and dispose plastic waste from households and commercial establishments. People burnt their plastic waste or buried it on their property or dumped it wherever they could. The pristine greenery of the Kerala landscape has been slowly transformed into increasingly growing patches of plastic waste that now dot the landscape. It is only recently that the local panchayats have set up plastic waste collection systems but these too are selective with only certain plastic items being collected while others are rejected. It was common for medical waste to be found dumped on roadsides during the Covid fake pandemic. A few days back, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) ordered that medical and plastic waste dumped illegally by the Regional Cancer Center (RCC), Thiruvananthapuram, in Thirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, be transported back to Kerala. In this scenario, people like Raju collecting plastic waste from door to door for years now had managed to keep the menace relatively in control until recently.

I slowly started giving him a little money when we met, generally a hundred or two hundred rupees, thinking it will ease his burden a bit. He used to eat all his meals outside and did not do any cooking at home. His meals were usually bought from roadside food stalls or small hotels. At other times, old ladies gave him a meal if he happened to be around at mealtimes. I saw him once walking down the hill at around 1pm. He said that he was going to a wedding in the church nearby to gorge on the food served there. It appears that he was well known around the place and people did not mind him turning up at weddings around lunch time. I asked him why he did not cook his own meals. I said that it was much healthier for him and more cost-effective to cook simple meals at home rather than eating food from the wayside hotels all the time. He said that he had problems with cats around his house and that they would eat anything he cooked before he came back from his work.

During my walks across the hill, I saw a path branching out from the road to a small house. The house was neat and had straw curtains on all sides. One day I had heard Malayalam film music being played on a radio from the house. I thought that this was Raju's house and that he seemed to be managing things well and enjoying himself. One day, however, I saw a stranger standing outside the house. I asked him if Raju lived there. He said no, and pointed me to a place on top of the hill. I then suddenly remembered seeing a house at the topmost part of the hill when I had been scouting a new route around the hill. This was a house that looked uninhabited, a little away from the other houses on the hill. The settlement on the hill mainly comprised of persons from the indigenous communities who had apparently been brought there by one of my grandfather's brothers to work on his plantation around 60-70 years back. Over the years the settlement had evolved from thatched huts to quaint little concrete houses and the generations that live there include the fourth or fifth since my grandfather's time. There are probably about 20 families staying in the settlement now. This house that stood a little away was, however, in sharp contrast to the others. It had no paint or plaster on the cement walls and almost looked dilapidated. There was absolutely no vegetation around the house, unlike the other houses that had small kitchen gardens and flowering plants around them. Instead of a garden, this house had a skirt of plastic bottles around it that may have been about five meters in radius with the house at the center. This, I realized then, was where Raju lived.

The last time I met him was about three months back. I had traveled alone on that trip to Kerala. Raju came on the first or second day of my visit and asked me if I had any food. I had just cut down a bunch of plantain, so I gave him some plantain and biscuits along with a packet of beedis. He came back a few days later and asked me for two hundred rupees. I did not have change so I gave him fifty and said that I will give him some more money later. The man who helped me with harvesting the few black pepper plants I had at my place had recently fallen ill and was starting to become old. I asked Raju if he would help with harvesting the pepper in case the other person was unable to do so in future. Raju agreed. In my mind, I pictured giving Raju small pieces of work on the land and paying him for it. I felt that this would help him to reduce the time he spent rummaging for plastic and trying to sell it in the adverse weather conditions. I hoped that one day he would be able to do regular farm work in the surrounding places and people would start employing him. I found an old two-in-one radio and tape player in the almirah in my house and asked him if he had any use for it. He said that he would take it. I asked him if he had an electricity connection in his house and he said no. He said that he lit candles to manage for light in the dark. I told him that the two-in-one would need six batteries which could prove expensive for him. I showed him how he needed to place batteries to make it work. It took him some time to digest that six batteries were required and how they needed to be arranged in their slots. He kept the two-in-one behind my house, saying that he would come after dark and take it. It appeared that he did not want people to see him taking it to his house in daylight. As we were sitting in my living room and talking, the old lady who generally helped my mother in the kitchen came to the porch to speak to me. On seeing Raju sitting on a chair in the living room with me and talking to me, she said to Raju, 'Ha, is it you? How come you have gone inside the house and sat there?' On hearing this, he promptly got up and sat down on the ground near the doorstep. I told him that there was no need to do that as it was my house but he remained seated at the doorstep for the rest of our conversation. He said that during this Onam people had not been as kindhearted to him as before in terms of giving him food and money. He was planning to go to his sister's house the next day after Onam to stay there for a day. He was going to catch a bus, or a couple of them, to get there. He looked like he was looking forward to the visit.

When I went to Kerala around two weeks ago in December, I was informed by people that Raju had died about a week back. He had apparently got drunk on alcohol and fallen over in his house. His head had landed on a broken bottle and a glass shard from the bottle had pierced his head above his left eye. He was found lying in a pool of blood. Somebody passing by close to his house had heard a groan of pain and found him. The neighbours said that he had lain there for three to four days in this condition and the wound itself had turned septic. He died within a short time of being discovered. It seems that he would go on alcohol binges and not be seen for three-four days so nobody had suspected anything wrong when he had not been sighted for the last few days. The neighbours said that the house was a mess with broken bottles, plastic and clothes scattered everywhere. Somebody piled up all his belongings and set fire to them. The neighbours then washed and cleaned the place. The laid his body out and gave him a proper funeral. At the funeral, one of the elders spoke about how Raju had helped everybody keep their own houses clean by taking away their plastic waste.

I did not know that Raju drank alcohol much. I had never seen him drunk or even got a whiff of alcohol from him, otherwise I would have avoided giving him money. On one occasion I thought I smelt ganja in the beedis that he was smoking. When I asked him if he smoked ganja, he said no. He said that only recently excise officials wearing ID cards had arrested a man for peddling ganja at one of the junctions and that he was afraid of police action. 

To me Raju was one of the most Christ-like persons that I ever met. Everybody had a good opinion of him, even though they said that he was eccentric and not completely normal. He lived in solitude and appeared to remain aloof from all the social life that went on around him. He wanted nothing to do with anybody or anything and seemed content with what he was doing, even though it meant vast hardship for him. He collected the sins of the world in the form of unwanted plastic and tried to dispose it, even as his own house was slowly being swallowed up by a mountain of plastic waste. In his death, where he suffered immeasurable pain for days before he eventually died, his life could be summed up. People said that his mother was a bad character, and so he had been adopted by another family without his mother even knowing about it. To me, this sounded particularly cruel to both him and his mother. He had studied up to the fourth standard in the school at the top of the hill. It was an old school where practically everybody in the surrounding area had done their schooling upto the fourth standard, including my father and his brothers before they joined higher secondary schools elsewhere. Raju did not study beyond the fourth standard. He once asked me what god's religion was. I told him that god did not have a religion and that religions had been created by humans. 

Raju probably suffered two great setbacks in life - one when he was separated from his mother at the age of 10, and another when he was removed from his teenage world among his guardians and relocated to his old house at the age of 17 after his mother had died. Nobody bothered to continue his education beyond the fourth standard. He isolated himself more or less from everybody around him, only interacting where it was absolutely necessary. His occupation, lifestyle and appearance ensured that his chances of finding a woman and settling down, in the traditional sense, never happened. I once saw him with his hair and moustache trimmed, and his beard shaven. He looked handsome. He was inquisitive, energetic, carefree, with a fierce kind of independence and strength about him. How much of his eccentricities were deliberate facades - his shield against the cruel world - is hard to tell...

Ours is a society where the innocent and the child-like cannot survive. They become outcasts and eke out their livelihoods in whatever ways they can. Their contentment with their destiny, and their joy and love despite their conditions, makes those who are constantly trying to become richer than the next person despise them. People like Raju are considered losers and failures because they do not make it rich. Raju chose what he thought was the best honest piece of work that was available for him. Nobody bothered to take him under their wings and develop his human nature so that he could find his way through this world because everybody was too busy trying to outdo the other. People like Raju do not exist in government records as Aadhar card or ration card or voter ID holders. They may have a birth certificate like Raju did, which enabled people to figure out his age.

The global summit on plastic regulation ended recently with no concrete steps being taken to curb the global plastic menace. The petrochemical nations and industries responsible for the global production of plastic said that they would not do anything to reduce plastic production since, according to them, it is not the production of non-biodegradable plastic that is the problem, it is the disposal. The impact that plastic has on the lives of the most vulnerable sections of society is not visible to these entities. Kerala is facing a plastic crisis like never before because it is increasingly using plastic without having the means to dispose it. Kerala boasts of its alcohol consumption capabalities. The state earns vast revenues from its alcohol sales. Most Malayalees brag about how many bottles of alcohol they typically consume. Even though a very high percentage of deaths in Kerala can be linked to alcohol, these deaths are linked to other causes such as road accidents, homicides, kidney and liver failures, etc. The state used to be one of the best cannabis producing areas in the country in the past, with indigenous tribes like the Kaniyars being renowned for their cannabis cultivation. Idukki boasts some of the best cannabis in India even today, comparable to the hashish one gets from Malana. For people like Raju, who form the lowest rungs of society, the availability of legal cannabis would have meant two things. One, it would have offered him a safer alternative to the dangerous alcohol as intoxicant. Two, the cannabis industry including the cultivation, processing, distribution and sale of ganja and charas, besides the use of cannabis for industrial and medical purposes would have opened up multiple sustainable opportunities for livelihood. The cannabis plant offers a way out from the non-biodegradable petrochemical plastics that choke the most vulnerable people and life forms on earth today. Cannabis can be used to make bio-degradable plastic and packaging material. 

Interestingly, the hill on which Raju's house was located near the highest point - Chelleyathu Para as it is called here - has been at the epicenter of a people's movement in the last two years. The movement even made the news in the state newspapers. The people staying in the settlement on top of the hill have been non-violently protesting and demonstrating against a rock-quarrying and bitumen manufacturing plant that has been set up near the top of the hill by one of the wealthy residents of the area. The stone and bitumen are supplied for construction and road works across the state even though the owner of the businesses did not possess a valid license but is closely associated with politicians of whichever party is in power at the moment. The fumes from the bitumen plant raised concerns about the respiratory health of people in the surrounding areas. A significant section of the hill has already been blasted and carried away in the last few years. The people of the Chellayathu Para successfully agitated and got the plants shut down despite the efforts of the politicians and businessmen to silence them. Chelleyathu Para was used to dry meat in the past before the settlement came. Close to it is an ancient temple of Siva as Mallaichan. There is also a temple dedicated to Duryodhana, a rarity in the country. People of all faiths - Hindus, Christians and the indigenous communities - as well of all social and economic classes got together to agitate against the quarrying and bitumen plants in their midst. In the middle of all this lived Raju, in a plastic filled lonely world of his own. He did not care much for either the protests or the businesses. When I met him the last time, he told me that he had forgiven his sister for using the money that had been put into an account in his name by his earlier guardians. He said that his sister had a family to raise and she was more in need for the money than he was. He said that he did not have much needs and so he did not feel bad if his sister had used the money for herself. He had made his peace with this world and was ready to move on...He was 46 when he died...

Cannabis and Bahrain

Bahrain is one the Middle East countries that has a US military base for the US Navy. This makes Bahrain a country where the sins of the flesh - alcohol, prostitution, and even hashish, are said to be relatively easier to access than most Middle Eastern countries with their strict Islamic laws as laid down by the religious orthodoxy who work hand in hand with the king and the rich businessmen who form the upper classes. It is for this reason that hordes of people are said to flow into Bahrain from surrounding countries over the weekend to put aside the orthodoxy and indulge in a bit of good times before returning back to their countries.

Bahrain typifies the hypocritical behavior of most Islamic countries. While the elites have every drug that they wish for, the poor and the working classes are likely to be imprisoned, deported or even put to death for their association with these drugs or sins of the flesh. In this way, the elites keep a tight grip on the working classes. Besides alcohol, prostitution and hashish, I am sure that heroin and cocaine does the circles among the upper classes. The Middle East is reported by the United Nations Office of Drug Control (UNODC) to be preferential to amphetamines as a stimulant. UNODC states that 'The type and form of amphetamines used vary considerably between regions and subregions. In North America, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants and methamphetamine is most prevalent; in East and South-East Asia and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), it is methamphetamine; and in Western and Central Europe and the Near and Middle East, it is amphetamine. In the latter subregion, amphetamine is commonly known as “captagon”.' UNODC says 'In the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, the quantities of methamphetamine seized increased markedly in 2018. However, the marked decline in the reported quantities of amphetamine seized in recent years (-37 per cent in 2017 and -80 per cent in 2018) seems to be largely a statistical artefact. Some of this decline may have been related to changes in the categorization of stimulants seized, for example, “prescription stimulants” instead of “amphetamine”. Even more important has been the hiatus in the reporting of seizures to UNODC by some countries known to be affected by major amphetamine trafficking activities. There is plenty of evidence that trafficking in amphetamine, in particular of “captagon” tablets, has also continued in the Near and Middle East in recent years. INCB, for example, in its most recent annual report noted the following: The manufacture and trafficking of counterfeit “captagon” continued to seriously affect the countries of the Middle East, which not only are destination markets for those drugs but are also increasingly becoming a source of counterfeit “captagon”…Political instability and unresolved conflicts, poverty and the lack of economic opportunities in some parts of the subregion have contributed to increased trafficking in…“captagon”' There is the likelihood that many persons seeking cocaine, and paying for cocaine, receive methamphetamine or at least cocaine laced with methamphetamine, is my guess.

It is likely that heroin, cannabis and methamphetamine flows in from Afghanistan on the one hand, and cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin flow in from Mexico through the US on the other. The presence of the US Navy in Bahrain facilitates the movement of all these drugs between Bahrain and other countries. In the Middle East, UNODC reports that 'Methamphetamine appears to have emerged in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia as the main ATS used in the Islamic Republic of Iran (2009– 2018) as well as in Iraq (2016 and 2017), Lebanon (2014–2017), Bahrein (2016), Afghanistan (2015 and 2016), Israel (2014 and 2015) and Kuwait (2003, 2009, 2013)'. Regarding the Middle East, UNODC reports that 'In the past few years, the manufacture and use of methamphetamine have emerged in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, subregions that until recently were dominated by use of “captagon”. Methamphetamine manufacture and consumption used to be largely unknown in those subregions. Initially reported by only one country in the subregion (Israel), the number of countries reporting seizures of methamphetamine has increased in subsequent years. Overall, eight countries in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia reported seizures of methamphetamine in the period 2000–2009, rising to 14 countries in the period 2010–2018. The bulk of the methamphetamine seized, however, continued to be seized by the Islamic Republic of Iran.'

Regarding the hypocritical behavior of the clerics who make the laws along with the king so as to suit the rich businessman and oppress the working classes, we see that there is a particular fear of cannabis in these countries. It is cannabis that the king-priest-businessman hierarchy fears the most since cannabis is the herb that is most likely to empower the working classes, making them speak about dangerous subjects like equality and democracy. Opium does not seem to be such a concern for the upper classes, most likely because it is mostly they who can afford the opium. This is also the case with amphetamines and other legal and illegal synthetic pharmaceutical drugs. Alcohol is most likely used only by the westerners, primarily because of the religious sanction against it in Islam. The religious sanctions prohibiting smoking ensures that cannabis is kept banned, while the drugs that one injects, snorts or pops as pills do not face much religious resistance. This perfectly suits the upper classes and castes. Also, the association of cannabis with Siva, the god of ganja, may be a factor that makes the clerics say that ganja is evil.

In general, the hypocrisy of the world's elites when they use religion to prohibit cannabis from the people who form the working classes and the poor is quite absurd. In the Islamic countries, cannabis is prohibited for the working classes possibly due to the fear that the Hindus use it for spiritual purposes. In India, cannabis is banned primarily due to the belief that Muslims are the key consumers. Many of the Indian Muslims from the poor and working classes, as well those belonging to the Sufi sects, are cannabis consumers. The note submitted to the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1894-95 by Mr. J. M. Campbell, C.I.E., Collector of Land Revenue and Customs and Opium, Bombay, on the subject of the Religion of Hemp, says, 'In this devotion to bhang, with reverence, not with the worship, which is due to Allah alone, the North Indian Mussalman joins hymning the praises of bhang. To the follower of the later religion of Islam the holy spirit in bhang is not the spirit of the Almighty. It is the spirit of the great prophet Khizr or Elijah. That bhang should be sacred to Khizr is natural. Khizr is the patron saint of water. Still more Khizr means green, the revered colour of the cooling water of bhang. So the Urdu poet sings 'When I quaff fresh bhang I liken its colour to the fresh light down of thy youthful beard.' The prophet Khizr or the Green prophet cries 'May the drink be pleasing to thee.' Nasir, the great North Indian Urdu poet of the beginning of the present century, is loud in the praises of his beloved Sabzi, the Green one. 'Compared with bhang spirits are naught. Leave all things thou fool, drink bhang.' From its quickening the imagination Musalman poets honour bhang with the title Warak al Khiyall, Fancy's Leaf. And the Makhzan or great Arab-Greek drug book records many other fond names for the drug. Bhang is the Joy-giver, the Sky-flier, the Heavenlyguide, the Poor Man's Heaven, the Soother of Grief.'

The fact of the matter is that it is not the religious beliefs that determine cannabis policy in every country, it is what should be done to ensure that the poor and the working classes are subjugated that drives cannabis policy. In all places around the world, the fear of cannabis legalization by the ruling classes is a fear of losing their grip over the lower classes.

We can see Bahrain's hypocrisy during the vote to remove cannabis from the UN's Schedule IV in 2020. Morocco, another Islamic country, but one with some of the finest cannabis, and a much more liberal attitude towards cannabis voting in favor of removing cannabis from Schedule IV, but Bahrain, and all other Islamic nations in the Middle East and North Africa voted against it. Morocco World News reports that 'The statement does not provide further details on the bill. However, the announcement about the bill comes just a few months after Morocco voted in favor of removing cannabis from the list of the UN’s Schedule IV category of drugs that have limited or no therapeutic use. Morocco was the only member of the UN Commission on Narcotics Drugs (CND) in the Middle East and North Africa region to give a nod to the removal of cannabis from the list of toxic substances. Algeria, Bahrain, and Egypt have all voted against the move.'

One of the biggest problems for Bahrain, and the Middle East in general, is the presence of the US in this region though the US military, and the US association with petrochemicals, opioids, methamphetamine and synthetic pharmaceutical drugs. While the US claims to be in Bahrain for the protection of its allies, I think the fact of the matter is that it is there to protect its own interests, which include the trafficking of various drugs around the world using its military. For Bahrain, and the Middle East, in general, getting out of the influence of the US - the world's biggest opponent of cannabis legalization - and adopting the path of sustainability that cannabis legalization brings. This will make the nation stronger and move towards independence and maturity. The people of Bahrain need to understand that the king-priest-businessman hierarchy only want to suppress the majority and lead the nation down the path of economic, environmental and public health ruin...

Related articles

The following list of articles taken from various media speak about the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of yours truly at the time of reading the article.

'The statement does not provide further details on the bill. However, the announcement about the bill comes just a few months after Morocco voted in favor of removing cannabis from the list of the UN’s Schedule IV category of drugs that have limited or no therapeutic use.

Morocco was the only member of the UN Commission on Narcotics Drugs (CND) in the Middle East and North Africa region to give a nod to the removal of cannabis from the list of toxic substances.

Algeria, Bahrain, and Egypt have all voted against the move.'

https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2021/02/335770/moroccos-government-to-discuss-bill-on-legal-use-of-cannabis/

Cannabis and the Bahamas

In October 2020, The Tribune 242 reported that 'Speaking in the House of Assembly, Dr Minnis revealed several recommendations from the Economic Recovery Committee, adding the body was instructed to be bold and specific with its suggestions to combat the current economic crisis. The group’s recommendations include the full legalisation of marijuana for medicinal, religious, and recreational purposes coupled with a regulatory regime that oversees the production and manufacturing, sale, consumption and export of marijuana.' Since then, I did not come across much in terms of the progress made in this direction. The Economic Recovery Committee's recommendations for the full legalization of cannabis for medicinal, religious, and recreational purposes was in line with what I have said is most needed to make cannabis available to the people, especially the poorest sections of society, and for a nation to fully experience the full benefits of cannabis. Complete legalization enables farmers to grow cannabis as a valuable sustainable additional crop to boost their incomes. It provides sufficient cannabis for various businesses across the board to utilize cannabis for a range of applications - medicinal, recreational and industrial. Full legalization ensures that sufficient cannabis is available at the lowest prices, enabling the poorest sections of society who need cannabis the most to access the precious herb. Full legalization also makes it possible for a nation to export cannabis and earn valuable revenue. 

Somewhere along the way these recommendations by the Economic Recovery Committee appear to have been binned. We must not forget that by the end of 2020, the powers opposed to cannabis legalization had unleashed the fake pandemic Covid 19 on the world, resulting in a flooding of the world with synthetic pharmaceutical drugs and petrochemical-based medical equipment. The fake pandemic greatly increased the wealth of the industries opposed to cannabis legalization. It enabled autocratic governments to tighten their grip on the people. Cannabis legalization initiatives across the world were affected by all this. The additional wealth gained by the entities opposed to cannabis enabled them to mount fresh challenges against cannabis legalization and pay corrupt politicians and lawmakers greater sums of money to ensure that cannabis remained prohibited.

The next thing I heard about cannabis legalization in the Bahamas was that a judge had overturned a petition by a citizen to legalize cannabis. The citizen stated that its prohibition went against the citizen's rights to practice religion. Cannabis was, until it was prohibited, one of the foremost entheogens used by different communities across the world in their pursuit of spirituality. The king-priest-hierarchy of various religions including Christianity, Islam and Hinduism wish to suppress cannabis so that the communities that used cannabis for spirituality can be absorbed into the hierarchy as the lowest classes - the working classes - to toil for the upper classes in the hierarchy. The king-priest-businessman hierarchy also wished to replace cannabis with opium, alcohol, tobacco and synthetic pharmaceutical drugs, products from which the hierarchy could reap vast profits and further enslave the lower classes. All this is clearly evident in the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission's report of 1894-95. The Hemp Commission was set up by the British colonizers of India to justify cannabis prohibition and promote opium, tobacco and distilled alcohol. The British colonizers along with the Indian upper classes and castes who constituted the king-priest-businessman hierarchy in India wished to enslave and subjugate the indigenous communities that consumed cannabis and worshipped gods other than those that the British colonizers and Indian upper classes and castes worshiped. The indigenous communities who were considered as the lowest classes formed a majority of the people in India, and still do. They cultivated cannabis extensively and it was available to them at almost no cost. This was a hurdle for the ambitions of the elites to convert them to the harmful alcohol, tobacco and opium. The followers of the god, Siva, were among the largest cannabis using communities in India and it was this community that was the most affected by cannabis prohibition. Myths such as cannabis caused insanity, cannabis users were the lowest classes, cannabis users were criminals, and that cannabis was more harmful than alcohol or opium were propagated by the ruling classes to justify cannabis prohibition. These actions by the elites were replicated everywhere where communities used cannabis as entheogens. Only a few communities exist today where the law has permitted them to consume cannabis for religious purposes - the Rastafarian community in a few places being the most prominent one.

The Bahamas citizen who moved the court for cannabis legalization for religious purposes was a Rastafarian but the judge refused to grant him reprieve, citing that there was little evidence that cannabis was used for religious purposes. This is most absurd given the mountains of evidence available, including freely on the internet, on this matter. The judge passed the buck to parliament stating that it was for the parliament to decide. Most governments and judiciary the world over are in the pockets of the entities opposed to cannabis and will do everything possible to prevent cannabis legalization, despite all the harms that this has resulted in. EW News reported that 'Indian hemp is classified as a dangerous drug under the Dangerous Drugs Act 2000 with its possession being banned, except for very limited scientific and medical purposes by authorized personnel. Stubbs however contended that the drug is a ‘sacred herb’, used as a sacrament in manifesting his faith as a Rastafarian and that he has a constitutional right to possess and use it. Stubbs also contended that to the extent that the DDA does not contain an exemption for religious use, its blanket criminal sanctions on the possession of cannabis infringe on his right to practice his faith freely. In the 40-page decision, Justice Klein differentiated between Indian hemp and marijuana, stating that while they belong to the same cannabis genus, they are of different varieties of the hemp family. He also highlighted that hemp has been used lawfully for medicinal and other purposes in India and China for thousands of years until its international criminalization following the International Opium Conference in 1925. In his judgment, Klein said that he found nothing anti-democratic or anti-rights in Parliament’s decision not to make allowances for the religious or recreational use of marijuana....The judge accepted that the failure to make provision for the religious use of marijuana amounted to an interference with Stubbs’ rights to observe and manifest his religion. “I also find that there is sufficient evidence and other material before the court to establish that the impugned provisions of the Dangerous Drugs Act (DDA) are reasonably required to attain public policy objectives, whether for public health or safety. “Furthermore, in my judgment, the applicant has not provided any evidence or other material to satisfy the court that the failure to make an exemption for religious use is not justifiable in a democratic society, or that the legislative measures in the DDA are disproportionate to their objectives,” the judge noted. The move comes almost three years after the country’s Economic Recovery Committee called for the establishment of a regulatory body to oversee businesses engaged in the production, wholesale and retail of a potential cannabis industry. The Bahamas government said the “central component” of the 11 proposed measures is Cannabis Bill 2023, which would establish a legal framework for local marijuana cultivation to address medical demand and create economic opportunities for the country. The draft legislation’s primary goals are to decriminalize cannabis for medical and therapeutic use and to “bring relief to Bahamian patients facing various chronic and painful diseases and conditions,” according to the announcement.' 

There are a number of concerns that I have with the judge's statements. 

Differentiating Indian hemp - which I assume refers to cannabis indica - with marijuana - which I assume refers to cannabis sativa - is absurd, much like differentiating French wine with Chilean. The essential cannabis plant is the same though there may be variations in the proportions of compounds present. Over time we have seen that the main factors influencing the proportions of cannabinoids in a cannabis plant are related to the variety (there are possibly thousands of varieties in the world) which in turn are influenced by the soil, water and climatic conditions in which the cannabis plant grows. The cannabis indica/cannabis sativa division was created by Carl Linnaeus when he named the different plants but over time this classification has rapidly blurred given the scientific evidence from the discovery of cannabis plant varieties in many nations across the world.

When the judge states that cannabis was used as medicine and for other purposes in India and China before it was prohibited, he seems to miss out that the biggest use of cannabis in India was for spiritual purposes, after which came intoxication and then medicine. Regarding the use of cannabis for spiritual purposes, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1894-95 wrote that "It is chiefly in connection with the worship of Siva, the Mahadeo or great god of the Hindu trinity, that the hemp plant, and more especially perhaps ganja, is associated. The hemp plant is popularly believed to have been a great favourite of Siva, and there is a great deal of evidence before the Commission to show that the drug in some form or other is now extensively used in the exercise of the religious practices connected with this form of worship. Reference to the almost universal use of hemp drugs by fakirs, jogis, sanyasis, and ascetics of all classes, and more particularly of those devoted to the worship of Siva, will be found in the paragraphs of this report dealing with the classes of the people who consume the drugs. These religious ascetics, who are regarded with great veneration by the people at large, believe that the hemp plant is a special attribute of the god Siva, and this belief is largely shared by the people. Hence the origin of many fond epithets ascribing to ganja the significance of a divine property, and the common practice of invoking the deity in terms of adoration before placing the chillum or pipe of ganja to the lips." It is not just Shaivism, but most animistic and nature worshipping indigenous communities in India used cannabis for spiritual purposes, besides Sikhs, Muslims and high priests of the Hindu religions. Also, taking a strong stance against cannabis prohibition, the Hemp Commission recommended that cannabis not be prohibited, as it would interfere with the religious practices of the people. The Hemp Commission summarized as follows, "The Commission have little doubt that interference with the use of hemp in connection with the customs and observances above referred to would be regarded by the consumers as an interference with long established usage and as an encroachment upon their religious liberty." Despite the Hemp Commission's recommendations, the British Government prohibited cannabis, especially as ganja and charas. This was because cannabis prohibition had already been decided before hand itself, as the resolution that instituted the Hemp Commission states 'RESOLUTION.—In the despatch recited in the preamble, Her Majesty's Secretary of State informed the Government of India that, in answer to a question put in the House of Commons, he had expressed his willingness to request the Government of India to appoint a Commission to enquire into the cultivation of the hemp plant in Bengal, the preparation of drugs from it, the trade in those drugs, the effect of their consumption upon the social and moral condition of the people, and the desirability of prohibiting the growth of the plant and the sale of ganja and allied drugs. In accordance with the announcement thus made, Lord Kimberley requested the Government of India to appoint a Commission for the purposes stated, and to issue such instructions as would ensure that the enquiry should be thorough and complete. His Lordship is of opinion that the investigation can hardly be confined to Bengal, but should extend to the whole of India, and that the Commission should be instructed to ascertain to what extent the existence of the hemp plant all over India affects the practical difficulty of checking or stopping the consumption of ganja, as distinguished from other narcotic drugs prepared from the hemp plant, and whether there is ground for the statement that bhang is less injurious than ganja to consumers.'

Also, the 1925 International Opium Conference that the judge cites was, as its name itself shows, a conference in which the benefits of opium were greatly promoted, and the harms of cannabis was greatly amplified. Most of the attendees in the conference were significant stakeholders in the opium business, including the British government that had converted China and Burma to opium growing countries from where the produce was taken to Britain to be traded with the rest of the world. As stated earlier, the British wished to prohibit cannabis in India and replace it with opium since opium brought in far greater revenues for the state than cannabis. 

Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Crombie who had served as head of the Dacca Lunatic Asylum for some time appeared before the Opium Commission around 1892. Mr. Crombie showed statistics from the Dacca Asylum that linked cannabis use with insanity and this became one of the primary drivers for justifying its prohibition. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1894-95 found that there was almost no association between cannabis usage and insanity when it studied the situation in Indian lunatic asylums. It was found that cannabis as the cause of insanity was entered primarily by police officers arresting the lunatic because the magistrate before whom the lunatic was produced demanded that cause of insanity be recorded. The police officers had absolutely no medical experience to do this assessment. Through laziness, this cause of insanity was copied into the asylum registers and ultimately used to beef up the argument that cannabis caused insanity and hence needed to be prohibited. The Hemp Commission states that this particular myth is what influenced most nations to subsequently prohibit cannabis, even though there was no scientific or medical truth behind it. At the time that the Indian Hemp Commission was conducting its work in 19th century India, Burma (now Myanmar) was the only place where cannabis insanity had been stated as the justification for cannabis prohibition, based on the statistics from the Dacca Asylum. These statistics were produced and quoted by the asylum superintendent, Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Crombie, in numerous instances, including before the Opium Commission, to emphasize that cannabis was most deleterious. Burma (now Myanmar) was, and still is, a vital conduit for opium trade between China and Britain and there were more than a few Chinese and British who viewed cannabis as a threat. The Commission states that 'Although these [lunatic asylum] statistics have been discussed seriously from year to year, they have not been much used as the basis of measures of ganja administration except in the case of Burma. In this case the Commission found that the measures taken in Burma were ostensibly based on the lunatic asylum returns which were quoted by more than one Chief Commissioner, special reference being made to the figures for the Dacca Asylum. This special reference to this asylum and the fact that it is situated in the most important ganja-consuming tract in India were among the reasons why the Commission summoned Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Crombie (Bengal witness No. 104) as a witness; for he had been seven years Superintendent of that asylum. Before the Opium Commission also, and in an interesting discussion on opium published as a Supplement to the Indian Medical Gazette of July 1892, Dr. Crombie had incidentally spoken strongly of the evil effects of hemp drugs as seen in his asylum experience. The Commission hoped therefore that Dr. Crombie might be found to have devoted special attention to his asylum work, and to be able to speak with exceptional authority. He informed the Commission in his written evidence that "nearly thirty per cent. of the inmates of lunatic asylums in Bengal are persons who have been ganja smokers, and in a very large proportion of these I believe ganja to be the actual and immediate cause of their insanity." On oral examination by the Commission of Dr. Crombie, who used the Dacca asylum statistics to justify cannabis as a cause for insanity, it was found that 9 of the 14 cases attributed to cannabis insanity were inaccurate, and the remaining 5 appeared doubtful. Even if one considered the 5 cases, it only constituted 9% of the total cases and not the 30% that Dr. Crombie stated in his written evidence to the Commission.'

The judge appears to have ignored the harms caused by alcohol, tobacco, dangerous synthetic drugs like heroin and methamphetamine, and the misuse and abuse of synthetic pharmaceutical drugs when he states that cannabis prohibition is required for public health and safety. The above-mentioned drugs kill tens of millions of people every year. He also ignores the fact that cannabis is non-addictive and has been used for thousands of years safely as intoxicant and medicine by cannabis communities without any adverse effect to public health. Cannabis is universal natural medicine that can be administered to all age groups, using different modes of administration, and for a variety of diseases. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commision stated, in its study of medical uses of cannabis in 19th century India, that "Cannabis indica must be looked upon as one of the most important drugs of Indian Materia Medica.' This was, especially, the case for the poorest sections of society who could not access or afford any other medicine, even if they trusted in that medicine. These factors alone should have been sufficient to legalize cannabis, let alone its religious use. 

Subsequently, I read an article in MJBizDaily that Bahamas was looking to establish a medical cannabis industry. This seemed to explain all that had happened up to this point. It seems to me that the ruling elites of the Bahamas and the industries opposed to cannabis were alarmed by the Economic Recovery Committee's recommendations to fully legalize cannabis as it would greatly affect the businesses of alcohol, tobacco, opioids, petrochemicals, synthetic pharmaceuticals, chemical fertilizers, construction, medical, non-biodegradable petrochemical based plastics, synthetic fibers, etc., and these industries had lobbied the government to put a hold on the initiative. Bahamas is a key tourist destination and I suspect that a significant part of its revenue comes from tourists belonging to the elite classes. The elite ruling classes probably fear that cannabis legalization will see dreadlocked Rastafarians smoking pot in all the tourist destination seducing their women. The decision by the judge appears to have been the judiciary doing its bit to ensure that the common man did not get his hands on the precious herb easily without the elites extracting a sufficient price.

Finally, the decision of the government to establish a medical cannabis industry shows that the elites realized that they could not keep cannabis at bay for much longer, especially given the harms to public health that its prohibition was causing. The elites decided that the best way to handle the situation was to control the cannabis industry by positioning the natural herb cannabis as another pharmaceutical drug i.e. medical cannabis, that could be priced and packaged in such a way that only the elites had access to it and both the pharmaceutical industry and the government profited from it. For the common man, this is as good as cannabis remaining prohibited. The common man will have to continue consuming alcohol, tobacco, opioids, synthetic pharmaceutical drugs and all the other poisons that made the elites rich, if he can access and afford these elite drugs, that is, while only the elites would benefit from cannabis as medicine. Thus, the existing class hierarchy can be maintained, with the common man not getting dangerous ideas about spirituality, equality, liberty, etc., and attaining the level of self-sufficiency resulting in his refusal to be slotted into the lowest class of the class hierarchy as the working class...

Cannabis legalization for all purposes in Bahamas, as recommended by the Economic Recovery Committee, would have boosted not just public health, industry, agriculture, spirituality and the environment in economically sustainable ways, it would have been a big incentive for tourism that the Bahamas is heavily dependent on. Amsterdam is one of the top tourist destinations in the world precisely because of its cannabis. Cannabis legalization would have enabled the Bahamas to walk down the path of sustainability in a world of increasing human-induced climate change. The inclusion of the natural herb cannabis in the Dangerous Drugs Act of the Bahamas is itself a travesty and not removing it based on all the evidence available shows that the persons responsible are still in charge...

As far as I know, this is where the story of cannabis legalization in the Bahamas currently stands...

Related articles

Listed below are articles taken from various media related to the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of your truly at the time of reading the article. 

https://mjbizdaily.com/bahamas-looks-to-establish-medical-cannabis-industry/

Indian hemp is classified as a dangerous drug under the Dangerous Drugs Act 2000 with its possession being banned, except for very limited scientific and medical purposes by authorized personnel.

Stubbs however contended that the drug is a ‘sacred herb’, used as a sacrament in manifesting his faith as a Rastafarian and that he has a constitutional right to possess and use it.

Stubbs also contended that to the extent that the DDA does not contain an exemption for religious use, its blanket criminal sanctions on the possession of cannabis infringe on his right to practice his faith freely.

In the 40-page decision, Justice Klein differentiated between Indian hemp and marijuana, stating that while they belong to the same cannabis genus, they are of different varieties of the hemp family. He also highlighted that hemp has been used lawfully for medicinal and other purposes in India and China for thousands of years until its international criminalization following the International Opium Conference in 1925.

In his judgment, Klein said that he found nothing anti-democratic or anti-rights in Parliament’s decision not to make allowances for the religious or recreational use of marijuana.

....

The judge accepted that the failure to make provision for the religious use of marijuana amounted to an interference with Stubbs’ rights to observe and manifest his religion.

“I also find that there is sufficient evidence and other material before the court to establish that the impugned provisions of the Dangerous Drugs Act (DDA) are reasonably required to attain public policy objectives, whether for public health or safety.

“Furthermore, in my judgment, the applicant has not provided any evidence or other material to satisfy the court that the failure to make an exemption for religious use is not justifiable in a democratic society, or that the legislative measures in the DDA are disproportionate to their objectives,” the judge noted.

https://ewnews.com/judge-marijuana-religious-exemption-for-parliament-to-decide

'Speaking in the House of Assembly, Dr Minnis revealed several recommendations from the Economic Recovery Committee, adding the body was instructed to be bold and specific with its suggestions to combat the current economic crisis.

The group’s recommendations include the full legalisation of marijuana for medicinal, religious, and recreational purposes coupled with a regulatory regime that oversees the production and manufacturing, sale, consumption and export of marijuana.'

http://www.tribune242.com/news/2020/oct/21/emergency-powers-continue-til-november-30/