Dear Editor,
The passing of the Hemp Bill, though discriminatory in nature, offers a new crop with great possibilities for Guyana… The bill is discriminatory in the sense that Clause 23 of the Bill, “gives the Minister the power to designate geographical areas, by Order subject to the negative resolution of the National Assembly, to cultivate or manufacture industrial hemp and hemp-related products.”
The minister has already discriminated in designating regions 6 and 10 for hemp, citing the closure of the sugar estates there as justification for Region 6. What about the farmers in the other regions desirous of cultivating hemp? Will the cultivation of hemp be for their eyes and ears only? The minister by virtue of his power in Clause 23 to designate locations where hemp could be grown has already exempted them. If this is not discrimination, somebody tell me what is?
The legal mind behind the bill, AG Anil Nandalall, in his contribution to the debate said, “there are large conglomerates waiting for the approval of the bill to commence production.” With that said, one gets the impression that small farmers would be kept out of hemp cultivation. The Guyana Hemp Authority, appointed by the minister, is in a position to take care of that by virtue of licence pricing and licence rejection.
The biggest irony of the bill is that a person seeking a licence, if rejected or one who has a licence suspended by the Hemp Authority for any infringement can appeal to the said minister who appointed the Hemp Authority within a stipulated time frame. Folks! Read between the lines. We all know how it is with gun licensees! In my opinion, the minister, by virtue of himself piloting the bill, has pre-positioned himself to personally decide who will cultivate hemp and in what regions of the country.
Small farmers are destined to be kept away from hemp cultivation by this bill. A former US president once said that “the greatest contribution a man can make to his country is the introduction of a new crop to his countrymen.” One can only envision that this bill as it is, by virtue of the power assigned to the minister, offers a new crop to a selected few – not the entire country.
Hemp is not a new crop in a worldly sense, it is one that has been unjustly criminalized by the UN convention on psychoactive drugs decades ago. The research had been done years ago to justify the decriminalization of hemp and over 20 countries around the world have joined the bandwagon to cultivate this lucrative and environmentally refreshing crop that offers a wide variety of human consumable products to humanity for over a decade now.
With this in mind, I wonder why a former PPP administration followed by the APNU+AFC administration had failed to heed the call to make hemp cultivation available to farmers despite so much advocacy for it to happen. Should we be thankful to the present Ali administration or the unseen demon in the room – US DEA – for finally untying the hands of the present administration to make way for this crop? The truth may never be told, but the conspiracy theories will remain.
Sincerely,
Rudolph Singh
