MINISTER OF EDUCATION Ronald Jones does not believe in “flooding our prisons” with people found guilty of having “a small spliff” of marijuana.
Enunciating his position on the issue yesterday, Jones said while he did not support the ingestion of “external substances” to alter the personality, small use of ganga should be decriminalised.
“I don’t think that we should flood our prisons for someone who is not selling but has a small spliff,” Jones remarked as he addressed student teachers attending an orientation session at the Erdiston Teachers’ Training College.
He acknowledged the world had come to embrace things that were once considered illegal. In the case of marijuana, he observed billions of dollars were being made in the United States where “the persistence of the manipulative voice has forced policymakers and political leaders to surrender to money makers.
“It is now okay to wholesale and retail cannabis under a licence from the state,” Jones said, while pointing to the situation closer to home, with ganga trees being planted at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica “because of the notion of decriminalisation”.
But Jones said: “I don’t think that we should flood our prisons for someone who is not selling but has a small spliff.” (GC)
