By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

FATHER James Palacious is a reluctant supporter of marijuana decriminalisation, warning yesterday that legalising the psychoactive substance may be fair for some reasons but harmful to the country.

“I wish we could ban alcohol,” he said yesterday, “but that’s not possible, it’s not practical, they tried it, it went underground during prohibition and of course it persists today, so if alcohol is legal, marijuana perhaps should be too.”

The draft preliminary report of the Bahamas National Commission on Marijuana recommends the decriminalisation of up to one ounce of marijuana.

Several religious figures have expressed their views since the report’s leak.

Bahamas Christian Council President Delton Fernander said he will comment when the official report is released.

“Unfortunately, people see marijuana as another means of changing their mood and that is extremely unfortunate, but I think that as an adult you have a right to that,” Father Palacious said.

“I don’t agree that you should use it. I don’t think it is a good thing for the country to have people smoking marijuana but if that is your choice, especially since we’ve legalized alcohol and cigarettes, which appear to be killing more people than marijuana, then that’s your choice. But it is not good for our young people because I don’t think we need something else to alter our mood, something else messing with our heads and whatever effect marijuana has, it is a fact that it has some negative impacts on people’s behaviour. It can be addictive and can be an introductory drug to other things. Like they did with the numbers, are they going talk about how you’ll have more counsellors available to deal with this? We ain’ see that happen with numbers yet.” Research is inconclusive on whether marijuana is a gateway drug.

Father Palacious expressed concern that the drug users with flaunt the substance in public.

“If you at the party, you could be inhaling weed, if you on Bay Street, people could just be passing you smoking your weed if it’s under one ounce,” he said. “Ten fellas could be coming down Bay Street just smoking. You could be out on the church porch smoking your weed. I think that’s an extremely bad image, a bad thing to see.”

More than anything else, the retired archdeacon is concerned the government won’t adequately enforce the rules it ultimately applies.

“Part of my reluctance is that enforcement processes in this country is so weak, that even when you say certain things, we don’t enforce them,” he said. “People don’t do what’s expected, they do what’s inspected and our inspectorate programme is just about zero. Look at how many people are running red lights. How are we going to enforce these rules?”