Rastafari movement blasts religious leader’s criticism of marijuana

A Rastafari movement has blasted Reverend Dr Lucille Baird for suggesting that legalizing marijuana had the potential to destroy society.

Speaking recently, Baird condemned what she called the sudden introduction of medical marijuana legislation as Barbadians were grappling with economic challenges.

“While Barbadians were under the anaesthesia of the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) programme, and anxious about the layoffs and the other issues associated with that, they got injected with legalized medical marijuana,” she said.

“. . . It can potentially cause long-term devastating effects on this nation, as other much bigger countries have experienced since making similar moves,” Baird, the head of Mount Zion Missions also added.

However, spokesperson for the Ichirouganaim Council for the Advancement of Rastafari (ICAR) Adonijah has refuted those suggestions.

Referring to Baird’s comments as “ignorant misinformation” Adonijah said Baird had no such evidence to support her claims.

“Dr Lucille Baird blithely speaks of the ‘devastating effect on this nation as much bigger countries have experienced’ if cannabis is decriminalized, without bothering to provide a scrap of evidence.

“Here is a question for her. Has she heard of any ‘devastating effects’ in Canada since legalization? What about Holland and Uruguay?” Adonijah questioned.

While pointing out that marijuana had been used in several homeopathic medicines in North America since 1937, he said the Church continued to show a bias towards the natural plant.

In fact, Adonijah contended that while the Church continued to oppose the use of marijuana, it was silent on the use of alcohol, which he argued had been proven to affect people’s health as well as to be potentially fatal.

“The demonstrated bias of the Church against a natural plant becomes even more curious when one considers its stance on alcohol. While even critics of cannabis are saying that “enough is not known” about cannabis, there can be no doubt about what is known about manufactured alcohol products,” Adonijah stated.

“The whole world knows that excess alcohol makes people badly ill, kills people, is responsible for many accidents on the road, is responsible for much domestic abuse and much more that is negative.

“Do we hear the Church arguing with such hysteria that alcohol should be prohibited, once again? Not a peep! But it is all over cannabis with its bias, misinformation and plain lies. Clearly, the Church is much more comfortable with manufactured alcohol, a product which kills, than it is with cannabis, a plant made by God which heals,” he added.