By FARRAH JOHNSON

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

ALTHOUGH the work of the Bahamas National Commission on Marijuana was placed on hold for more than three months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, group co-chairs Bishop Simeon Hall and Quinn McCartney yesterday said the commission plans to reconvene in short order.

In an interview with The Tribune, Bishop Hall said although the virus has caused the commission to go on “recess,” the group will resume business in a short while. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis tabled the commission’s report in the House of Assembly, bringing the country one step closer to marijuana reform. However, it is unclear what concrete steps have been taken in recent months to advance marijuana legalisation.

“The commission was moved from the Ministry of Health to the Office of the Prime Minister, so that perhaps might add to the fact that the load of priorities does not favour the commission,” he said. “But I understand the commission will resume shortly.”

When asked what progress the BNCM had made before the pandemic forced the country to shut down, he added: “If I remember correctly, we had initiated some statistical data from the Department of Statistics.”

Mr McCartney added that the commission had “started dialogue” with the department so that it could assist the commission with preparing a survey.

“That would have been a very, very labour intensive exercise,” he told this newspaper. “So perhaps now in light of the COVID restrictions and protocols in terms of social distancing, we may have to look at the way we conduct the survey now. It may be slightly different from what we intended and so these are all things the commission would need to discuss to see how best we can achieve our objectives without putting anybody at risk.”

Mr McCartney said that “nothing significant” had happened over the past few months because of the emergency orders put in place amid the pandemic. Still, he said the commission hopes to “reactivate in the coming months.”

“We have nothing new to update at this time,” he said. “As you are aware, we submitted our report in January because the prime minister wanted to give his Cabinet a chance to have a look at our preliminary report. But of course in March, COVID-19 happened and we are basically just getting out of that period.

“We hope to reactivate and to sort of tie up our work hopefully in the coming months, but again we will need to return to the Office of the Prime Minister that has responsibility for this project and get further directions in terms of which way the prime minister would wish for us to continue.”

When asked, Mr McCartney said the BNCM did not have a specific time frame to have its work completed.

“Since we’ve been on pause for the past three-and-a-half months or so we need to reconvene,” he stated. “So I think the intent is to try to get direction from the prime minister in terms of which way he would like to see us go. Then we will get together and have a better idea of the way forward.

“The commission won’t meet before the (Independence Day) holiday, but as soon as we would have had an opportunity to reconvene and meet, then we’ll be able to give an indication as to our next steps and what we intend to do.”

The BNCM’s report recommends that those prescribed cannabis for medical purposes should have unlimited potential to grow plants to meet their needs. It also proposes that legislation be enacted to protect employees from discrimination or job loss for using cannabis for medical reasons.

Still, the BNCM’s most talked about recommendation is that possession of up to one ounce of marijuana be decriminalised for people 21 and over. In recent times, there has been much debate worldwide revolving around the decriminalisation of marijuana. Locally, several people have recently been brought before the courts for simple drug possession. Many of those charged for having small amounts of the drug have been fined hundreds of dollars or ordered to attend drug counselling for up to a year to avoid the offence being placed on their records.