Grenada parliament approves amendment to marijuana legislation

The Grena­da par­lia­ment has giv­en the green light to leg­is­la­tion amend­ing the ex­ist­ing mar­i­jua­na leg­is­la­tion mar­i­jua­na even as Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell Tues­day said that his pref­er­ence had been for the de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion to take ef­fect from the age of 18 years giv­en that it is al­so the age of civ­il re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

How­ev­er, he told Par­lia­ment that he had to set­tle for age 21 be­cause of the “pas­sion­ate de­bate” that con­vinced him that it was a bet­ter choice that 18 years.

“There was pas­sion­ate de­bate, we went back and forth…if you are an adult you are an adult, 18 is 18, we recog­nise 18, you can dri­ve, you can vote, you can get mar­ried, so from my per­spec­tive you should be al­lowed at 18 if you do so wish to choose but I was in the mi­nor­i­ty,” Mitchell said as he made his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate on the amend­ment of the Drug Abuse (Pre­ven­tion and Con­trol) (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026 that re­ceived the sup­port of both gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion leg­is­la­tors.

“And so I cede gra­cious­ly to the med­ical ex­perts, to the men­tal health ex­perts who recog­nise that at 18 a brain is still de­vel­op­ing,” Mitchell added.

The gov­ern­ment had de­scribed the mea­sure as a trans­for­ma­tive mile­stone to­ward cannabis re­form with the Min­is­ter for Agri­cul­ture, Lands and Forestry, Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment and Plan­ning, Lennox An­drews, cit­ing the move as one “that pri­ori­tis­es the health of in­di­vid­u­als and safe­ty of our youth, while fi­nal­ly un­lock­ing ther­a­peu­tic and eco­nom­ic pow­er for all Grena­di­ans”.

The amend­ed leg­is­la­tion marks a shift from puni­tive pro­hi­bi­tion to­wards a bal­anced, ev­i­dence-based frame­work ground­ed in so­cial jus­tice, pub­lic health, and eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty.

The bill pro­vides for amnesty and au­to­mat­ic ex­punge­ment of crim­i­nal records for spec­i­fied mi­nor cannabis of­fences. Pend­ing crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings for the spec­i­fied mi­nor amounts of cannabis, will be dis­con­tin­ued.

It al­so af­firms the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of the Rasta­fari com­mu­ni­ty to use cannabis as a sacra­ment with­in reg­is­tered places of wor­ship and for spe­cial events, with al­lowances for cul­ti­va­tion.

Adults aged 21 and over will be per­mit­ted to pos­sess up to 56 grams of cannabis and 15 grams of cannabis resin, plus reg­is­ter to cul­ti­vate up to four plants per house­hold for pri­vate use. Pub­lic con­sump­tion re­mains pro­hib­it­ed and sub­ject to fixed penal­ties.

Strong safe­guards re­main in place to pro­tect chil­dren and young peo­ple, in­clud­ing strict penal­ties for any­one who sup­plies cannabis to mi­nors and a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive, non-crim­i­nal ap­proach for youth found in pos­ses­sion.

While the bill fo­cus­es on de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion, it es­tab­lish­es the foun­da­tion for a reg­u­lat­ed med­i­c­i­nal and ther­a­peu­tic cannabis in­dus­try.

Gov­ern­ment said it will move with­in three to six months to de­vel­op a com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al cannabis pol­i­cy frame­work and sup­port­ing leg­is­la­tion cov­er­ing cul­ti­va­tion, pro­cess­ing, re­search, and med­i­c­i­nal use.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Sen­a­tor Claudette Joseph un­der­scored the bill’s time­li­ness, stat­ing that “Grena­da is one of the last ju­ris­dic­tions to now move in the di­rec­tion of the de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of cannabis and ul­ti­mate­ly the es­tab­lish­ment of a med­ical cannabis in­dus­try.”

She in­sist­ed that de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion does not mean un­re­strict­ed use. Cannabis will re­main a con­trolled sub­stance, with clear lim­its, de­fined of­fences, and en­force­ment mech­a­nisms. Pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion will ac­com­pa­ny im­ple­men­ta­tion to ad­dress stig­ma, pro­mote re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour, and high­light both the ben­e­fits and risks as­so­ci­at­ed with cannabis use.

Prime Min­is­ter Mitchell told leg­is­la­tors that there is al­ways a bright and dark side of mar­i­jua­na use once its no longer recog­nised as a sched­ule one or con­trolled drug in na­tion­al law.

“Yes, there is al­ways the bright side and the dark side, we didn’t have an ap­proach that said this is pure­ly about recre­ation­al or pure­ly about the so­cial in­jus­tices that have been per­pet­u­at­ed on the Rasta­far­i­an com­mu­ni­ty.

“We al­so recog­nise that there are se­ri­ous med­ical risks and se­ri­ous so­ci­etal chal­lenges that ex­ist whether or not the pol­i­cy con­tin­ues to crim­i­nalise the use of pos­ses­sion for hav­ing ap­pa­ra­tus rel­a­tive to the use and or cul­ti­va­tion of mar­i­jua­na that these things ex­ist,” he added.

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness, Phillip Teles­ford who is al­so the Min­is­ter for Health, in tabling the leg­is­la­tion, said that the new mea­sure does not al­low for recre­ation­al use of mar­i­jua­na.

“Our pol­i­cy of de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion will be peered with strike reg­u­la­tions to pro­tect the youths and ac­com­pa­nied by a ro­bust pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign and a strong en­force­ment against in­tox­i­ca­tion while dri­ving med­ical use re­mains con­trolled and recre­ation­al use as per this Bill is not per­mit­ted. The Gov­ern­ment pri­ori­tis­es health and safe­ty over short term eco­nom­ic gains,” Teles­ford told the Par­lia­ment.