It’s important to set this weekend’s news, that Jersey’s politicians will shortly consider what can only be described as radical changes to the island’s cannabis laws, in context.
In effect, what the Health Minister is asking his colleagues to do, is set out a very clear direction on how they want policy to develop.
He is careful to say that in each of three options for change which he has presented, the actual effect of agreeing one of them is simply to require him to come back with more detailed proposals. Actual change may still be some years away.
This seems to be because whatever Jersey decides, may then have a wider implication for the UK through international conventions to which they are a signatory, and to maintain their border security. Clearly the island does not sit in isolation, even though it remains responsible for its domestic legislation.
Having said that, the Health Minister is to be congratulated for giving his colleagues a clear set of options on which to express their views (and in doing so, facilitate a wider public debate) and for building on the momentum for significant change which has already built up in this Assembly.
Voting to decriminalise cannabis for personal use is clearly a very significant step, but also one which seems to become much less controversial as each year goes by, and on which considerable doubt now seems to be growing as to actual benefit of prosecutions for low-level offences. A practical and pragmatic approach seems to be gaining currency.
Clearly, the more radical option in the proposals is for the Government to run a time-limited trial in which non-medical cannabis is legally produced here, and sold under agreed controls.
Only registered adult residents would be allowed to take part in the trial, and any onward supply would remain a criminal offence. The aim, we are told, is to “…understand and evidence whether safe and responsible regulation delivers public health benefits.”
The proposition is very clear that the aim is not to make money – the trial would be designed to test “non-profit markets,” which “…prioritise safety and social responsibility.”
Readers of these columns will remember frequent calls for the Government to be bold, and to think differently; they are based on the perception that the answers of previous years may no longer be effective in dealing with the questions of tomorrow.
Here, our politicians are being presented with exactly one such proposal: one which will force us to approach an issue with fresh eyes.
