MP Emmanuel: legalize marijuana
PHILIPSBURG – Legalize marijuana and call a referendum about independence. Those were the two messages MP Christophe Emmanuel (National Alliance) brought to the table during the first day of deliberations about the 2018 budget on Monday.
“I did not come here to talk about the flag project or about land issued in long lease on the ring road,” Emmanuel said, thereby moving two controversial issues out of the way in one sentence.
Instead, the former Vromi-minister focused on alternative solutions for tackling the 197 million guilders deficit in the 2018 budget. He referred to the revenue the state of Nevada generates from legalized marijuana – $30 million during the first six months of this year, which led Emmanuel to say that St. Maarten could make $60 million (107.4 million guilders) a year from the sale of legalized ganja.
Whether that is accurate remains to be seen. Real estate broker Arun Jagtiani said during a presentation about legalizing marijuana in 2015, that such an industry could generate a turnover of $22 million a year and bring in $945,000 in turnover taxes alone. The industry would also create around one hundred jobs.
Emmanuel told parliament that he will soon submit a draft amendment to article 7 of the Opium landsverordening – the national ordinance that regulates drugs in St. Maarten – to make selling and using marijuana legal for medical and recreational use.
“The consumption of alcohol and tobacco has reached alarming levels,” Emmanuel put his proposal into perspective. “And what happens if another hurricane hits? Our tourism product is already on its knees. I am asking everybody: just think about it.”
Emmanuel said that he would ask the Prime Minister to call a referendum about independence 6 months from now. Whether that request will be honored is questionable too, because according to the constitution, calling a referendum is the prerogative of parliament. “The States may take the initiative to proceed with a consultative referendum,” is the text of article 92 of the constitution.
MP Rolando Brison (United St. Maarten party) said that he will invoke article 64 of the constitution to trigger a parliamentary inquiry into the management of the landfill. “If we are truly interested in a solution for the dump we have to get down to what the problem really is,’ he said.
Brison announced that he will submit documents to request the referendum in the coming weeks. The national ordinance that regulates the parliamentary inquiry states that parliament can decide to conduct such an inquiry at the proposal of one or more of its members. A parliamentary inquiry is conducted by a committee consisting of members of parliament.
