“We live in the 21st century, and I am reading about change in sentence rather than in the essence of the law relating to possession of marijuana. For possession of 15 grams, the charge is trafficking.

“If found guilty, the mandatory sentence is three to five years. In Jamaica, legal possession is forty grams. In the US, there is no mandatory jail sentence for marijuana or cocaine. The judge has the legal authority to go under the sentence guidelines. So for 500 grams of cocaine, you can get probation, as a Guyanese recently did in the US.

“It is not only the possession of 15 grams of ganja that carries a trafficking charge, but you get arrested and charged for the possession of one gram. Can anyone imagine the stupidity of a country that charges people for possession of one gram of marijuana?

“To think that there are ruling politicians who do not want to change this section of the law. No wonder foreign people frown on us. Caribbean people know how backward we are and they laugh at us.”

I did not write the above. You might believe the writer is talking about the Cayman Islands. He is not. He is talking about Guyana.

See iNews Cayman story published today “Guyana: The Caribbean laughs at us; we are primitive”. There you can read the whole column.

If one was to compare us with Guyana it would automatically seem we are comparing a dollar bill with a gold bar.

However, when it comes to the possession of ganja we are talking the same.

And HMP Northward is full of persons jailed for marijuana possession and still smoking it there.

Unfortunately when they leave they are more often than not hooked on harder drugs like cocaine and learning the “skills” of robbery and violence.

And there is talk of having to build another prison…

Therefore, I have to ask the question again.

Is the Caribbean laughing at us, too?