St. Vincent legalized medicinal cannabis in 2018, but the industry cannot take off while US warships enforce a blockade. A nation cannot build a legal economy under military threat.
It has been five months since the United States Government, led by Donald Trump, imposed a military blockade against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, under the guise of fighting drugs. For the people of Venezuela, it has been a very painful experience. They have lost their President, suffered many casualties, as well as serious socio-economic setbacks. But apart from affecting the people of Venezuela, it has also affected other peoples and countries of our region, including St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG).
Since then, the US military has blown up dozens of the regions’ fishing boats, and an estimated 157 passengers have been killed, on the pretext that they were “narco-terrorists.” There was no evidence presented, no trial, just summary executions.
As a traditional cultivator of cannabis myself, which, incidentally, fits into Trump’s categorization of drugs and drug traffickers, and therefore, exposes our own traditional cultivators (TCs) to a similarly risky fate, and as President of the Cannabis Revival Committee (CRC), a traditional cultivators’ organization, we strongly condemn the action of the US military.
Who knows? Any one of us may be next. As traditional cultivators, we are all potential candidates for attack.
With the military blockade, SVG, coupled with the ongoing and indiscriminate blowing-up of our fishers, we are now witnessing a transformation of our region from a zone of peace to zone of war, a situation which could only make life more miserable for us as a people, and, in the case of SVG, especially our traditional cultivators, particularly hurting. I must say, the potential of a miserable life for us, as traditional cultivators, has never been so bleak.
This is not an endorsement of the illegal nature of our activities as traditional cultivators. But facts are facts. Cannabis, legal or illegal, is here to stay. Going back to the 1970s, cannabis has been the one crop that has sustained some of the most marginalized communities in St. Vincent. It contributes significantly to our own socio-economic and cultural development, in some estimates being the largest contributor to the economy, employing thousands. We did not end up in this situation by choice, indeed many of us were pushed into the hills out of desperation after the United States (and World Trade Organization) decimated our agricultural industry in the mid-1990s during the Banana Wars.
Given that our main market for agricultural exports in Europe was taken away from us, and that we lacked an international airport to build a competitive tourism industry, we took up the only opportunity which was available to us. For this, we were met with several rounds of US drug eradication exercises, such as Operation Weedeater, which needlessly took the lives of Vincentian citizens and caused serious economic hardship without addressing the root cause. Given the centrality of cannabis in SVG, it became one of the most pressing political issues of the last 30 years.
As it stands, we can best manage it by doing our possible best to get all the harm out of it, or, at least, to significantly reduce such harm. This is why in 2018, after decades of popular struggle, the Government of St. Vincent became the second Caribbean country (after Jamaica in 2015) to reform its cannabis laws significantly. While St. Vincent has taken essential steps to establish a legal medicinal cannabis industry, ahead of many countries in this regard, this seemingly progressive initiative remains stalled due to the prevailing international regulations imposed by UN treaties on drugs and the most recent imperialist attitudes and threats around “narco-terrorism” in the region. Indeed, our attempt to build a legal, regulated medicinal industry to address the histories of poverty and underdevelopment in the region are at risk of being undermined by US imperialism in the Caribbean Sea.
One only must look at the region’s main suppliers to appreciate the situation. As expected, the military blockade and the blowing-up of fishers have had a significant impact on trade from Colombia, while hurricane Melissa, having seriously damaged the cannabis industry in some parts of Jamaica, has caused a big setback to that country’s supply. Take for example, the expected greater influx of drug traffickers from the region and beyond, the potential increase in the importation of guns and ammunition, as well as the potential accompanying violence, as a result. Not to mention, the forging of new partnership between our very local traffickers and their regional and international counterparts, who, in some cases, may very well be more experienced, more hardened and merciless, God forbid that they are.