Our inflation rate is increasingly high and the economic growth rate is slow for the vast majority of the Cook Islands people.

The Government can take immediate steps to ease this stagflation economy by decriminalising weed and allowing the people to grow their own.

Home grown pot is a far better option than buying cannabis from a pharmacy here in the Cook Islands.

We can save a lot of money by growing our own because these cannabis products that are supposedly coming in from New Zealand and Australia will have a price tag that the patients of the Cook Islands will have to absorb, namely, import fees, licence fees, taxes, and regulations, just to name a few. These are all unnecessary costs to the patients of this nation when we can simply grow our own.

You don’t have to be a math whiz to comprehend the clear financial benefits that come with home grown marijuana.

Sure, the work of growing cannabis might be less appealing to some people but if you love to garden or just like to save a lot of money, the decision is simple, it’s time to grow your own or get a designated grower to do it for you.

All that would need to be done is to get a clearance from a doctor to consume cannabis and pay a small fee to register with TMO or the Police to grow 10 plants and off you go.

Until we get marijuana decriminalised the criminal justice system can still enforce the outdated and punitive cannabis laws of this nation. But it is high time for them to start looking the other way because it is hypocritical to enforce the law when a huge majority of our people are already using weed for medicinal or recreational purposes and just want to be left in peace.

Instead of chasing get rich schemes like the Tainted Cryptocurrency Bill, the Government needs to, firstly, allow for the immediate cultivation of cannabis by patients and secondly, get to work on decriminalising weed.

In the meantime, as marijuana use wins growing legal and public tolerance, jurors may be reluctant to convict for an offence many people no longer regard as serious.

Steve Boggs