Will There Be a Cannabis Referendum in September?
In the intervening time since the petition signatures were submitted to the Governor General and subsequently the Elections and Boundaries Department for verification, there has been a lull about the controversial cannabis referendum. It is not to suggest that work isn’t taking place in the background, however, the much talked about national vote has gone quiet. This evening when we met up with the Minister of New Growth Industries, Kareem Musa, he provided an update and told the media that if all goes well, the electorate will be heading to the polls in sometime in August or September.
Kareem Musa
Kareem Musa, Minister of New Growth Industries
“We do have a democratic process in place under the Referendum Act which says that any issue whatsoever, so long as you secure ten percent of the voting population for a particular petition, you can in fact trigger a referendum. And so, that is part of a good democracy, so I am not in any way concern. I believe that the process is almost over and once the requisite signatures are there, we should be having a referendum, I would say sometime in August or September if the signatures are met.”
Reporter
“Do you think that they will be met?”
Kareem Musa
“Well, according to the churches, they have submitted their signatures so I would have to assume that they did meet the requirement.”
Isani Cayetano
“Is that sufficient time, however, for there to either be an awareness campaign or some kind of push for education ahead of the referendum itself?”
Kareem Musa
“I think that this particular piece of legislation, if you recall we introduced it over a year ago. It went through modification and we now have it as a standalone bill and in the last four or five months, I would say that it is on the front burner and that is something that I truly appreciate, to see the open discussion and the differing views on this particular topic. And so, I won’t say that we have exhausted the education process, but certainly, in my opinion, it’s been on the front burner for quite some time and an additional thirty days would definitely be some good room to have more discussions, more public education on this particular bill.”
