The Alliance For Change (AFC) is certain that despite differences of opinion, legislators from both sides of the House can find common ground in reducing custodial penalties for the possession of small quantities of the drug.
It also said yesterday that the delay in moving the bill forward was to enable evidence-based policy to be formulated.
“It’s not legalising cannabis or its smoking…[but a] reduction of custodial penalties for possession of small sums,” APNU+AFC parliamentarian Michael Carrington said of the proposed Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) (Amendment) Bill.
The bill, which was tabled by Carrington in December, 2015, has languished in legislative purgatory for two years but there is now renewed interest in it following the recent sentencing of a 27-year-old farmer to jail for three years for possession of eight grammes of marijuana.
