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Church Council Conservative on Cannabis
Fri, August 18, 2017
As we told you in the first segment, the government introduced the amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act today in Belmopan. While no vigorous debate had begun as yet, we asked Methodist Bishop and President of the Belize Council of Churches, Roosevelt Papaloutte to give his preliminary reaction to the legislation. He was quite diplomatic and open minded on the matter. So he didn't take a hard line stance, but he did say that many factors need to be considered especially when it comes to how this change will impact youth.

Reporter
"One aspect of the amendment is that pretty much if you are caught with 10 grams or less anywhere in the country there will be no charge. What are your thoughts or your comment in response to that?"

Roosevelt Papaloutte, Methodist Bishop - President of the Belize Council of Churches
"Again, I know that perhaps that the essence of it, is there any other thing attach to that, because if you are caught today with 10 grams and perhaps one week later with 10 grams and less than 10 grams and 2 months later with less than 10 grams. What is in place? That are a lot of implications that perhaps we will have to look at as to how this is going to take place."

Reporter
"One other element to the amendment is that if you are found with under 10 grams in your home, there will be no charge. What are your thoughts to this and I know you express concerns in terms of youths - young children, they will be in the homes as well. So what are your thoughts in terms of that portion of the amendment?"

Roosevelt Papaloutte
"And that's what I feel is that it's not simply the amendment to the law, but what are we going to put in place to help if it is something that is happening in the home for example, lack of guidance or wherever that young person is. What are going to put in place to we give you that ease, but what are we going to give you to guide you to help you to discipline yourselves, because whether we believe it or not, 10 grams or less, it still means something, especially for the younger generations. We need to have programs within the schools or in the churches and when we were looking at it as well as church leaders and I am speaking frankly from the Belize Council of Churches point of view - we were also looking at we too as a church. What can we put in place?"

Reporter
"In your opinion, you do support this ease in terms of cutting back on the charges for this small amount of weed. You would consider that, you're open to that?"

Roosevelt Papaloutte
"I would consider that. I believe a number of us from the church community have given thought to that. The amendments is a welcome step. We need to have it before us to see exactly all that it entails and I believe the church is not really an opposition party. We tend to sit down and look at what is before us and make meaningful recommendations that will be useful not only for the young people, but for generations and for the country at large."

Now while Papaloutte was more open to finding common ground on this issue, the National Evangelical Association of Belize simply won't have it. In a release sent out today it opens by saying "The National Evangelical Association of Belize and it's 250+ represented churches expresses its disagreement with intent and steps of Government to decriminalize marijuana, a move that we are convinced is an incremental step towards legalization." It goes on to say that the Association had presented studies and reports reflecting the "danger of marijuana use" and that it's members had asked the government to NOT go in this direction.

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