The Caribbean is questioning its enduring ties to the British Crown, because it seeks to completely flip the web page on its colonial previous. Throughout the subsequent few years, we are going to possible see a number of of the unbiased Caribbean nations that keep constitutional ties to the British monarch grow to be republics, led by native heads of state. These winds of change may additionally encourage new considering concerning hashish legalization.
A lot of Britain’s former territories opted to maintain the British monarch as their head of state following their independence. One instance with which many People are acquainted is Canada. The truth that Canada is a monarchy explains why the names of some Canadian authorities companies embrace the prefix “royal” (for instance, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) and why Queen Elizabeth II adorns Canadian cash.
Till just lately the state of affairs in Barbados was much like Canada’s, however on November 30, 2021, the island grew to become a republic, bidding farewell to centuries of royal rule. The importance of the occasion went far past the change within the nation’s type of authorities: For the primary time in its historical past, Barbados’ head of state is a Barbadian, slightly than a British king or queen.
In all chance, Barbados would be the first of a number of dominoes to fall within the Caribbean. The prime minister of Jamaica made it clear in March 2022 to a visiting Prince William that he hoped his nation would quickly comply with Barbados’ lead. In April, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda advised different royals that his nation “ought to at some point grow to be a republic.”
What does this all must do with hashish?
To make sure, a republican wave is not going to by itself advance hashish legalization within the Caribbean. Regardless of their hyperlinks to the British monarchy, international locations like Jamaica are unbiased, which is why they’ve a selection in relation to their type of authorities within the first place. Whereas the British monarch, by the governors-general she appoints, should nonetheless grant royal assent to those international locations’ laws, that is largely symbolic (although not essentially in locations that stay British Abroad Territories, as we defined in British Virgin Islands Hashish: Bother in Paradise).
On the similar time, what is occurring within the Caribbean may nonetheless have an effect on hashish coverage. The winds of change we described above may convey new views on nationhood for the folks of the area, together with a reassessment of the authorized standing of hashish.
The previous British colonies of the Caribbean didn’t simply inherit the British authorized custom after they grew to become unbiased: Most remained a part of the British authorized system to a point. To this present day, the Judicial Committee of Privy Council in London serves as the very best courtroom of attraction for a number of of the Caribbean’s unbiased international locations.
When reviewing the drug laws (or certainly any legal guidelines) of the previous British Caribbean, one can’t assist however discover how a lot they resemble British legal guidelines, right down to the typography and format of the unique paperwork. That is no coincidence in fact: Most of the legal guidelines on the books hint their origins to colonial occasions. This isn’t to say that Caribbean nations are on authorized autopilot in relation to hashish or any topic; nevertheless, a long-lasting deference to the authorized framework established throughout British occasions is comprehensible (particularly in international locations that share a monarch with the UK).
It’s past the remit of this weblog to take a deep dive into attitudes towards hashish within the former British Empire. Nevertheless, by the twentieth century, the considerably extra ambivalent views of days previous had hardened, leading to hashish criminalization in locations like Jamaica. As Barney Warf factors out, “missionaries decried the ‘vile weed;’ and mounting official disapproval led to antimarijuana crusades, ostensibly on the grounds that its use elevated crime charges.”
One other vital improvement in relation to hashish within the Caribbean was the dramatic improve in immigration from the area to the UK following World Struggle II. For some within the UK, this migratory wave was problematic, and hashish was a part of the issue. In 1951, the pinnacle of the nation’s Medicine Department warned that except:
“one thing might be executed … to stem the ‘invasion’ of unemployed colored males (largely British topics) from Africa and the British West Indies [i.e., the Caribbean], we will in a really brief house of time be confronted on this nation with a severe cannabis downside.”
It’s onerous to think about that such views didn’t inform British colonial authorities within the Caribbean, contributing to prohibitionism. Remember that in 1951 the British nonetheless dominated all of their now-former territories within the area.
As one journalist put it, Barbados’ decision to embrace republicanism is “extra of an emotional, historic, symbolic determination than a sensible one,” and this can possible be true of others that comply with it. But the emotional modifications may assist result in sensible ones as effectively.
Going ahead, anticipate the nations of the Caribbean to more and more outline their very own voices and query the legacies of the previous. On this atmosphere of change, it should solely be pure for these nations to revisit hashish legal guidelines. To the extent that prohibitionist approaches are at odds with the realities of the area, they might search for extra constructive fashions, which repudiate the stigmatization of hashish use and permit their societies to combine into the worldwide hashish economic system.