BVI : Following a discussion about the overcrowded state of Her Majesty’s Prison, talk show host Douglas Wheatley, during his Speak Out BVI Program on May 15, announced that the time has come for discussions on whether cannabis should be decriminalised.
The dicey conversation began when the host stated that the prison was originally built for just about 60 persons and is now overcrowded with a population over a 100.
He said: “We ought to look at the types of criminal activity that’s putting people behind bars. Some people have expressed the view that, if for example you are caught with a very minute quantity of cannabis, why should you serve prison time for that and if you are serving prison time for that then the numbers in the prison will be high because there are some people who have cannabis for their persons use.
“They are not involved necessarily in selling to other persons it’s just a personal thing, and we know that there are countries in the world that have decriminalised (cannabis). We have to look at various ways to keep the numbers down because I think if we were to do a check and a survey we would find that a large number of the inmates in the prison are on drug-related charges.”
Wheatley added: “I think the time has come, and it has certainly come long ago, when there should be a discussion and a debate about that particular subject. In a number of other countries they are now in the process of decriminalising marijuana use and I think that the time has come for all of us to sit and have a debate and discussion on it, because if you continue to have it as an illegal activity you will continue to have your prison with these large numbers and talking about getting more rooms and adding more rooms.”
Wheatley believes the territory needs to come to an understanding.
“We have condone rum and cigarette smoking, and more and more we are learning through science and so on that these things are extremely disastrous to your health, but you can still go anywhere and buy them very freely,” he noted.
“The time has come, long since when we should have a discussion in a dispassionate way, and we shouldn’t get all worked up, saying ‘well that is what you are in favour of and you want to encourage that’ and that sort of thing. I think we should sit down like mature people and look at all of the ramifications of these things and come to an understanding. We don’t have to be worried about what another country is doing or how some other person is going to look at it, let us look at it and examine the thing with the facts. If we need some scientific information let us get some scientific information and make a sensible decision,” he said.
A caller to the program announced: “What I don’t understand, you think a vegetable should be legal something that is a vegetable is actually illegal. …. Marijuana should be legal because it is a vegetable substance, it is a herb, it comes from the earth…. It ain’t nothing too dangerous at all; it like food, you don’t have to be frighten of it, it’s vegetable so just stop fighting against it. …it good for us…. They always talking about who on the side of the road smoking marijuana; from Beef Island straight to West End, people on the side of the road drinking rum and smoking cigarettes nobody saying anything about that. A lot of young people doing it too, just drinking, drinking; a lot of these doctors we have around us especially who is premier, minister and politician and such we all use to be young, we all know, so we shouldn’t be preaching about it, we know what it is so let us stop pretending, it is good for us Doug,” the caller said.
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