Since the introduction in Anguilla of a Bill entitled the ‘Criminal Justice Reform Act, 2018’, it would appear that the most talked about and contentious issue, is the possible decriminalisation of the possession of cannabis of no more than 10 grams; the equivalent of a handful. The motivation for this change is to prevent the criminalising of people for the possession of cannabis for their own use so they don’t suffer the stigma of such a label and the associated negative effects of a criminal record possibly being an impediment to employment and limiting their travel options. A positive knock-on effect would be the freeing up of police time to concentrate on other matters and the associated cost savings to the criminal justice system. US studies have found other benefits of decriminalisation. They include less people attending ‘emergency room’ because of problems experienced with harder more toxic drugs such as cocaine, heroin or even alcohol. In other words they are reducing the harm of their drug use by switching to cannabis.
An objective review of research looking at the effects of decriminalisation in other jurisdictions shows that for the general population it does not have much of an impact on patterns of use. This supports the view that laws restricting the use of drugs have little effect on whether people actually use them or not. Research shows that the main factor that stops people from using drugs is age; people getting older coinciding with life changes, for example having children etc. The perception that a drug is having negative consequences in their lives or their health is also a much bigger factor than the thought that they might be locked up or fined for possessing the substance. Illegality does not appear to be much of a deterrent.
One of the concerns of decriminalising cannabis, which, there has rightly been much discussion about, has been how it would affect children’s use. Would decriminalisation send a message that cannabis is safe and therefore okay for young people to smoke? Would this lead to a rise in school age users? In terms of our youth, it might almost be better to fully legalise cannabis as then an age restriction of perhaps twenty-one can be enforced to send the message that younger people are more vulnerable to marijuana’s negative effects. Placing an age restriction while decriminalising would defeat the purpose of the bill as the motivation behind it is not to criminalise. It would be therefore absurd to then start criminalising minors. Perhaps some sort of compromise could be reached in this area.
A relatively recent study from 2015, found that school aged children who live in decriminalised jurisdictions have a 12% higher uptake in use compared to minors living in countries where cannabis use was a criminal offence. However, the same study found that adults living in decriminalised countries reduced the rate of initiation by 11%. So a slight uptick for minors therefore leads to a corresponding down tick in adult initiation. The general findings were that ‘(1) Decriminalization leads to uptake at an earlier age than would otherwise occur under crim-inalisation, and (2) Decriminalization does not affect whether an individual ever uses cannabis.’ (Damrongplasit et al) The research suggests that decriminalisation does not seem to have much of an impact on use in the general population. However there is a tendency for about 1 in 10 school aged users to use at an earlier age than they would have done.
The American College of Pediatricians, who are in support of keeping tight restrictions on cannabis use, cites a study that reflects the aforementioned. The study shows that 10% of non-using adolescents stated that they were more likely to try cannabis if it became legal to do so.
At a regional level, there is not much research to go on. In Jamaica, the Health Minister, Dr. Christopher Tufton, claimed in 2016 that the ‘Dangerous Drugs Act’, which led to the decriminalisation of cannabis in 2015, led to “a 54% increase in students enrolled in a ganga prevention programs since the decriminalisation of possession of 2 ounces or less of ganga.” I could not find the research in support of this, but if accurate, it is obviously a concerning statistic and suggests school age use may rise as a consequence of decriminalisation. Such a rise, however, might also be owing to an increase in students being identified as users, rather than an actual increase in students using, as students become more open about their use as the criminal element is taken away.
Caveats have to be attached when looking at examples from other countries as decriminalization laws are different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. A case in point is the aforementioned Jamaica where their law allows a person to be in possession of up to two ounces of cannabis before it is construed as a criminal offence. Anguilla, on the other hand has proposed an amount of 10 grams. Two ounces is 56.69 grams, a big difference and an amount that would be very difficult to carry around in your pocket unless you had unfeasibly large pockets. This is a very liberal amount and suggests that the Jamaican government of the day wanted to cover all their bases in order to not criminalise people for possession.
Interestingly, in other regional jurisdictions that have decriminalised, such as Jamaica and Bermuda, they have also prohibited the smoking of cannabis in public. It will be interesting to see if this will also be included in the Bill.
Iain Bibby
Substance Misuse worker in Schools.
