THE Rastafarian Community is prepared to adapt to any amendments to the country’s narcotics laws, with education and discipline being priority factors, should its wishes for legalisation of the marijuana herb be fulfilled.Ras Leon Saul, a top Executive of the Guyana Rastafarian Council, noted that Rastafarians have always been in the forefront of activism for change in the nation’s marijuana laws.
“We, of the Rastafarian Community, have a role to play in the sense that we have got to impose a sort of discipline and bring a certain amount of spiritual consciousness to bear on the plant, which is used as a sacrament in our way of life,” Saul told this newspaper.
“We have to become more responsible, and we have got to engage in something called re-education,” he explained.
Saul said that laws regarding the drug and its use are outdated. “The laws are too draconian at this point in time, because these laws were imposed by a colonial-minded administration that was designed to keep ordinary people oppressed, and to keep them separated from practising their culture in its truest sense,” Saul said.
He said that when he became president of the Guyana Rastafarian Council in 2010, the body made several calls for the herb to be legalised. In 2011, the strongest plea was made in observance of International Year for People of African Descent, when the Council made a call to then President Bharrat Jagdeo, at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre, for legalisation. Jagdeo, however, shot down their calls.
“So, since 2011, our activism and our agitation has ramped up to the point where now we are getting results, and we are very happy and we will not stop until we get full legalisation. We have reasons to keep pressing on,” Saul said.
But are Rastafarians prepared for legalisation? Saul said that, with a new policy put in place regarding marijuana and its use, there will be protocols, and license will be put in place to complement such protocols. He said that by regulating the use of the herb, the current situation will be improved. He said there exists a “Wild West situation, whereby persons use the drug openly, even the younger persons within society”.
“But just like with alcohol, you would have stringent rules, where people below a certain age cannot buy it or cannot be (seen) in public with it. There will be laws and regulations to go with it,” Saul explained.
Asked whether he believes Guyanese are ready to accommodate amendments to narcotics laws, Saul pointed to statistics on jailed offenders, which is currently being gathered to present legislation to Parliament. He believes the public is ready for legalisation, and he added that persons are being penalised in major numbers for marijuana possession.
CLOSET USERS
He also pointed to a large number of “closet users” — persons whom he believes use the drug behind closed doors.
“A closet user is like a person who is in a closet. They are not revealed…. So there are people hiding behind closed doors, under bottom houses, and in the backdams, ducking and hiding and feeling guilty while they use it,” he explained.
Saul posits that there may be more users of marijuana in Guyana than one would imagine, because, “not every Rastaman is a user,” he said. He said also that there may be more persons without dreadlocks who are using it than those with matted hair.
At a forum held last Friday at the National Library, Alliance For Change (AFC) Chairman Nigel Hughes explained the link the drug has had with crime over the years. Saul echoed similar sentiments yesterday.
“It can even bring down the crime wave. Our jails are clogged up with many minor offenders,” Saul said. He added that Rastafarians are not only pushing for the legalisation of marijuana, but are also interested in the relaxation of laws so that industrial uses of hemp, a high-growing strain of cannabis, can be introduced into the economy.
”We can now move towards industrialisation using a super plant like hemp,” he posited, “once legalisation is realised.”
NEW POSTER BOY
Saul referred to recently released football coach Vibert “Durdy” Butts as the new poster boy for marijuana legalisation. He said Butts is no ordinary Rastafarian, but is rather a national hero who scored Guyana’s first ever goal at a football World Cup. Choosing the life and culture of a Rastafarian was Butts’s choice, and being convicted for drug possession, a sacramental act, was disappointing to the man, Saul explained.
He said that “timing” is what he deems to be key to the man’s case. In the scenario, he said, “Vibert Butts is a poster boy, a sacrificial lamb for the cause”. He added that Butts is not an ordinary Rastafarian, dreadlocked individual, citing his contribution to the history of Guyana via football.
While the case was a sad one, he said, “The community is happy that it has happened at this opportune time. Faith in the Almighty, who could not have chosen a better representative, a Rastaman, an icon and a father with young children,” Saul said. He said that many children grow up in broken homes in a continuous cycle bordering on incarceration due to possession of the drug.
Saul and other members of the Rastafarian Community expect the use and possession of the drug in legal quantities to be enforced next year, and the group anticipates that government will play a key role in legalisation of the drug, since this administration had made pledges to change the relevant laws while in Opposition.
At the moment, some 14 states in the United States of America have legalised the drug in various quantities, while the Government of Canada under recently-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to legalise the drug in coming months, with taxes and prevention using regulatory laws being key factors in its full legalisation.
Saul says: “The future looks bright and green. We are talking about a green economy and we leave out the whole question of what we are going to do about marijuana and industrial hemp?” he queried.

By Alva Solomon