Dear Editor,
The passing of the Hemp Bill, though discriminatory in nature, offers a new crop with great possibilities for Guyana. The bill is discriminatory in the sense that clause 23 of the Bill “gives the Minister the power to designate geographical areas, by Order subject to the negative resolution of the National Assembly, to cultivate or manufacture industrial hemp and hemp-related products.” The minister has already discriminated in designating regions 6 and 10 for hemp, citing the closure of the sugar estates there as justification for region 6. What about the farmers in the other regions desirous of cultivating hemp? Will the cultivation of hemp be for their eyes and ears only?
The Licence for cultivation is not tied to acreage and with the AG echoing the sentiment, that “there are large conglomerates waiting for the approval of the bill to commence production”, this paints a picture of small farmers being kept out of hemp cultivation. The Guyana Hemp Authority appointed by the minister is in a position to take care of that by virtue of licence pricing and licence rejection. The biggest irony of the bill is that a person seeking a licence, if rejected or one who has a licence suspended by the Hemp Authority for any infringement can appeal to the said minister who appointed the Hemp Authority within a stipulated time frame.
A former US president once said that “ the greatest contribution a man can make to his country is the introduction of a new crop to his country-men.” The bill as it is, offers a new crop to a selected few – not the entire country.
Hemp is not a new crop in a worldly sense, it is one that was unjustly criminalized by the UN convention on psycho-active drugs decades ago. The research had been done years ago to justify the decriminalization of hemp and over 20 countries around the world had joined the bandwagon to cultivate this lucrative and environmentally refreshing crop that offers a wide variety of human consumable products to humanity for over a decade now.
With this in mind, I wonder why a former PPP/C administration followed by the APNU+AFC administration had failed to heed the call to make hemp cultivation available to farmers despite so much advocacy for it to happen?
Yours respectfully,
Rudolph Singh
