Back your words with action, minister
When someone moves from writing public policy to making it, their words become a public standard against which their actions will be measured.
The senator Ryan Robinson Perinchief, Minister of National Security, enters office with cannabis reform identified as an immediate priority and more than a passing familiarity with the subject. His academic paper, recently republished in the Bermuda Journal of Academic Research, argues that cannabis prohibition is rooted in racial prejudice and discrimination, and that its enforcement has produced institutionalised racism and systemic inequality upheld by the law.
He cites earlier research showing that Black Bermudians represented 54 per cent of the population but accounted for 90 per cent of possession charges. He also cites findings of as many as 17,000 stop-and-searches in one year, with 85 per cent of those searched being Black.
Section 12 of the Bermuda Constitution protects against racially discriminatory laws and treatment by public authorities, including laws that are discriminatory in their effect. The Government must explain how cannabis laws enforced so heavily against Black Bermudians are consistent with the Constitution’s promise of equal treatment.
Cannabis reform has been on the PLP’s agenda for more than a decade and formed part of the mandate it asked the people to endorse in the 2025 election. Bermuda decriminalised possession of seven grams or less in 2017, subject to conditions, but private use and cultivation remain unlawful.
In his paper, the minister states that “decriminalisation may still be insufficient” and that, from a rights-based standpoint, it constitutes only a “bare-minimum response”. His conclusion goes further, stating that an appropriate response “would cease cannabis prohibition”.
On February 19, 2021, Kathy Lynn Simmons, then Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs and Constitutional Reform, said that criminalising cannabis through personal-use offences “is ineffective, costly and represents poor public policy”.
I have no doubt that the minister will be considering these facts within the context of Britain’s international treaty obligations. Those obligations may restrict Bermuda’s ability to establish a commercial recreational cannabis market, but they do not require us to preserve every remaining criminal penalty for cannabis offences. A truly progressive response would therefore end criminal penalties for responsible adults whose cannabis use is personal and private.
A law borne from prejudice cannot be repaired merely by changing who receives permission from the Government or granting institutions privileges and economic opportunities denied to ordinary Bermudians. Cannabis must be treated as a public health and public safety issue, with reform focused on ending the unequal criminalisation produced by prohibition, not merely creating another licensing opportunity.
Minister, you wrote the case against half-measures and you now have the authority to move beyond them. Bermuda will judge the Bill not by how many licences it creates, but by how many people it stops turning into criminals.
• Omar Dill is the chairman of the Free Democratic Movement. For Ryan Robinson Perinchief’s article on cannabis legalisation, see Related Media
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