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Memo: Pro-Cannabis Community on 420 — Abolish Cannabis Prohibition
“The fight we started – what we wanted, is not what we are getting,” a Rastafari recently said.
In South Africa, Jamaica, St. Kitts, Barbados and Antigua legalization and decriminalization have proved to be tokenism. Also in Ghana, depenalization and non-custodial sentencing have not stopped the punishment.
It seems we have been praying for the wrong things. We’ve demanded ‘legalization’ mainly because it is a widely used term. But, at best,‘legalization’ is a placeholder for abolition.
What we really want is to end the arrests: the abolition of cannabis prohibition. Indulging legalization’s logic has compromised the vision.
The continued arrests and fines belong with legalization’s unstable categories – medicinal, industrial, recreational, sacramental. These terms fracture the herb’s holistic purpose.
That framework is beholden to prohibitionist interpretations of existing drug treaties.
Governments have been swayed by the prohibitionist interpretations, but the treaties themselves are actually subject to respective signatory nations’ constitutions – not the other way around.
And yet, parliament should not be expected to draft bills that secure our fundamental
freedoms. We cannot blame law-makers or the judiciary for the impasse. Court decisions
depend on the cases presented; legislatures make laws based on the demands made. Have we demanded what we really want? Only the ganja community can draft meaningful marijuana laws.
We must intervene with a clear abolitionist vision – and not trip up ourselves with ‘legalization’ and other concepts that continue to uphold prohibition.
(Source: Ahuma Bosco Ocansey)
