Regulate Marijuana Sale To Gangs and Illegal Firearms

Minister Musa contends that regulating the sale of marijuana will drastically decrease the number of gangs and illegal firearms across Belize City. He is of the view that with these regulations in place, murders connected to the sale of cannabis will see a drastic reduction. Here is how he puts it.

Kareem Musa

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs

“And what, you might ask, but why do they need to have guns if they’re selling cannabis? The simple reason is that many times these dealers, so to speak, in the streets, owe the big man. And when they owe the big man, the big man has to send another group to deal with that group that owes. That’s just as simple as it gets. And thereafter, it results in a series of retaliation and a series of beef that continues for decades. That’s what we have seen build up over the last few decades. And it all revolves, a plant, could you imagine that? It’s not as though we are a cocaine producing or a cocaine consuming country. It all revolves around the cannabis trade, the illegal cannabis trade. And I always say, do you see anyone, Paul, killing anybody for a bottle of rum, for the sale of a bottle of rum? No, because rum is regulated. Beer is regulated. Both of those substances are more harmful than cannabis. But yet, we continue to live in the dark. It is this one hundred year propaganda, which has fostered this environment now to create this illegal trade that results in guns coming over and gangs being created around this particular plant.”