By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

ATTORNEY General Ryan Pinder said once the government releases its draft cannabis bills next month, a two-month public consultation phase will follow.

He confirmed that the draft would address decriminalising small amounts of marijuana.

He said the bills, which will involve a regime for medical and religious use of cannabis, should be released after the independence celebrations.

“Cabinet has authorised public consultation to commence,” he told reporters before a Cabinet meeting. “We look to launch that shortly after independence.”

“It’ll take place for probably two months. We want to be thorough. We want to go to all constituents that matter and are interested and that have opinions. We want to ensure that we have widespread consultations through the Family Islands. We want to talk to the medical community and let them weigh in. We want to talk to the religious community and let them weigh in. We certainly want to talk to the agriculture and agri-business community and let them weigh in.”

“So, this is going to be pretty widespread, very organised. We’ll have a social media and a digital component to it as well as in-person consultations. We have the website created with all of the legislation, and this isn’t just one bill. These are bills, regulations and rules, orders –– the whole scope of what it will take to put this regime in place, and that’s why it’s taking some time because we just don’t want to throw a bill out there.”

Mr Pinder said the government wants the public’s views on decriminalising marijuana and making it legal for recreational use.

“We are certainly going to take feedback from the public on recreational use,” he said. “We have chosen to put a regime out for medical and religious use in the first instance, and the consultation’s going to be widespread.”

“With respect to decriminalisation, there’s a decriminalisation framework that we’re going to be releasing in July that would effectively decriminalise a smaller amount and treat it effectively like a traffic ticket.”

Several countries around the region have already decriminalised marijuana.

Last June, Mr Pinder said the Davis administration intended to advance comprehensive legislation to regulate a medical cannabis industry and a separate framework for industrial hemp.

At the time, he said this would be done in the first six months of the fiscal year –– by the end of 2022.

However, that did not happen. It remains unclear when marijuana legislation will be tabled in the House of Assembly.