DECRIMINALISING cannabis will be debated by States Members later this year, in a move welcomed by campaigners.
Home Affairs Minister Helen Miles told a Scrutiny hearing this week that while she was ‘completely neutral’ on the topic, she believed the time was right to test the mood of the Assembly on decriminalisation.
Her comments follow the publication this month of a long-awaited ten-year Substance Use Strategy. One of its aims is to ‘continue progression away from criminalisation’, but there is no clear indication in the document of whether Jersey might move in this direction.
Of the 780 Islanders who responded to a JEP online poll yesterday, three-quarters said they thought cannabis should be decriminalised in Jersey.
Appearing at an Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel quarterly hearing, Deputy Miles said: ‘My intention is to have an in-committee debate about [it].
‘It shouldn’t be in the “too difficult” tray. We need to have a conversation about it and we need to understand the mood of the Assembly.’
The minister described some aspects of the current approach to drugs in the Island as ‘de facto decriminalisation’. She said that the vast majority of ‘low level’ possession of certain drugs by first-time offenders, although currently considered offences, were dealt with at a parish hall inquiry and did not result in a criminal conviction. She described this as ‘effectively decriminalising’ such conduct.
The legalisation of medicinal cannabis had created what she described as a ‘two-tier system’, she said.
‘These are the debates we need to have and we need to hear what people think and we need to act accordingly. We have waited a long time for a strategy. We need to get cracking, and to get cracking and fulfilling some of these objectives, we need to understand the prevailing mood of the public and the Assembly,’ said Deputy Miles.
News of the in-committee debate has been welcomed by End Cannabis Prohibition Jersey co-ordinator Simon Harrison, who described it – and publication of the Substance Use Strategy – as ‘the right step forward’.
‘It is certainly progress. If you look at the strategy it is called “A Change of Direction”, so the clue is in the title.
‘I agree with the approach that Deputy Miles is taking [in terms of] taking it to the Assembly for an in-committee debate,’ he added, describing it as ‘a great forum’ to discuss the subject.
He cited an ‘Ask the Ministers’ panel event held in 2021, when former Health Minister Richard Renouf said that the decriminalisation of cannabis ‘will happen at some time’.
That same year, the late Len Norman – then Home Affairs Minister – said the decriminalisation of drugs was something ‘we wanted to look at’.
His Assistant Minister at the time, former Deputy Gregory Guida – who eventually took on the role of Home Affairs Minister – said his position was ‘very much the same’.
‘For this to be coming through [now], it is fantastic,’
Mr Harrison continued. ‘When it comes down to it, all it really requires is guidance from the Attorney General to be issued.’
