Dear Editor,
I have been vocal in my call and rigorous in the campaign to see the decriminalisation of small amounts of marijuana, which would see young people not being jailed in the event that they possess minute portions of that particular herb.
Our government seems to want to go to the polls with the expectation of triumphing, while they remain steeped in their unwillingness to deliver on their promise in this particular instance.
Oppression of the Guyanese people in any form is unjust and unacceptable. What adds insult to injury, is that our government’s grandstanding in the issuance of millions of dollars’ worth of tickets to the Guyanese people to see Buju Banton perform at the National Stadium last week is nothing short of hypocrisy. Buju represents my generation and our younger generation, who have called and are still calling for the legalisation of marijuana.
I have been very clear in my call over the years for the people never to accept promises that are not kept by political leaders.
Under the brutal reign of Mr Jagdeo and Mr Ramotar (largely under Mr Jagdeo), hundreds of our youths were murdered by the Phantom Squad, the Guyana Police Force and another specialist repressive arm of those PPP governments called the Black Clothes.
Let it be recorded and registered here now that a countless number of our young people have lost their freedom under this government, resulting in broken families and the pain and struggle that come as a result.
Let it be made pellucid that children have been exposed to the horrors of abuse, including sexual abuse, because their fathers and mothers were unjustly sentenced to years in prison; years for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Oppression is oppression, regardless of its different manifestations.
I am once again intensifying the call for justice in this regard. I am calling on President David Granger to pardon those persons sentenced and spending months and years in prison, to be reunited with their families and loved ones. I am calling for this government to change the legislation.
A luta continua.
Yours faithfully,
Norman K. Browne
