By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 13, 2019
In 1981, after teaching in the United States for about ten years, I decided to return home for good. To do so I had to erect a personal library so I could do my work. Without my library I would be lost, so I asked my first cousin—one of those cousins who possesses the skills to do everything—to build a library at the back of my mother’s house.
Continue reading Jamming the Poor, Still
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 12, 2019
“The civilization of the fathers was hinged on the preservation of that which already existed, not on the discovery of new things.”
—Chigozie Obioma, An Orchestra of Minorities
Brian Harry is a Trini who was educated at Queen’s Royal College. He has lost several friends because of his outspokenness. Some years ago he told me that a major difference between a developed and a developing society is one of attitude. Citizens of a developed society think of what they can do; citizens of developing societies always think about what they can’t do.
This distinction came to mind on January 29 as I read the Trinidad Express and the New York Times articles of how two jurists approached matters of public policy. The cases involved the use of marijuana and each jurist’s response to it. I appreciate that we are talking about two different systems of jurisprudence, but their responses to a similar problem was interesting.
Continue reading The Door of Tomorrow
By Noel Kalicharan
April 22, 2017
The “war on marijuana” has been waged for close to one hundred years, cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, made criminals out of millions of otherwise law-abiding persons, denied life-saving medicine to millions more, without making the smallest dent in its availability.
Continue reading Why marijuana became illegal
By Leanna Ganga
April 18, 2017
Imagine a society where all drugs are legal and persons can openly purchase any drug of their choice from licensed and regulated distributors, just like they already purchase cigarettes and alcohol.
One may think of such a society in a state of what sociologists call anomie and deviance, with lots of intoxicated people committing criminal acts and the majority of citizens being addicts. This thinking, however, would be inaccurate.
Continue reading No Crime Plan Without Legalising Drugs
By Raffique Shah
March 13, 2017
Many friends, relatives, even family members seem intent on having me “make ah jail” in my winter years: they are pleading with me to use marijuana! It’s not that they want to see me in a ganja-stupor or they will take delight in seeing armed cops swoop down on the geezer and whisk me off to some dank, putrid cell.
No. They want me to use marijuana for medicinal purposes, specifically, to reduce, probably eliminate, the debilitating symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) with which I have been afflicted for at least five years. Like me, they have watched videos and read of studies and trials conducted by scientists on the use of cannabis in successfully treating PD patients.
Continue reading Legalise it!
Newsday Editorial
Wednesday, May 4 2016 – newsday.co.tt
RONALD RAMDASS, 50, had been here before. As he stood in the dock of the San Fernando Magistrates Court, he weighed his legal options. The magistrate, Brahmanand Dubay, read out the charge: possession of marijuana. It was a charge with which Ramdass was all too familiar. According to court officials, he had more than 20 convictions for larceny and drug offences.
Continue reading Deal with it, Dr Rowley
By Nalinee Seelal
June 17, 2015 – newsday.co.tt
POLICE confirmed yesterday that they found five grammes of a “plant like material resembling marijua-na” at the Prime Minister’s private residence, prompting Acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams to order an investigation into the mat-ter.
A report of the find was submitted to Williams at 2 pm yesterday — a day after he said that the police were not in possession of any information on drugs being found at the Prime Minister’s residence. The report, signed by Snr Supt Gould and given to Williams yesterday indicated, that the substance contained in a plastic bag was discovered in the male wash-room of a Gazebo on the western end of the Prime Minister’s residence at Phillipine. The discovery was made by a Special Branch officer on Friday April 19, 2013 at about 8.50 am.
Continue reading FRESH WEED PROBE
By Julien Neaves
February 22, 2015 – newsday.co.tt
WITH Caribbean neighbour Jamaica making moves to decriminalise marijuana University of the West Indies (UWI) Professor Emeritus Kenneth Ramchand is renewing his calls for marijuana to be decriminalised in Trinidad and Tobago for medicinal purposes.
In January this year the Jamaican Government tabled the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act, 2015 in that country’s Senate to decriminalise marijuana for medicinal, religious and personal use.
Continue reading Decriminalise it
Official statement from: Kamla Persad-Bissessar, SC, MP
Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago
June 12th 2014
PM: No action against Minister Anil Roberts at this time
There has been a clamour in some quarters for me to have taken immediate action in relation to allegations made against Minister of Sport, Anil Roberts.
Continue reading PM: No Action Against Anil Roberts