Mahler Concerned About Caye Caulker Cannabis Referendum

Tourism Minister Anthony Mahler isn’t thrilled about Caye Caulker’s plan to hold a cannabis referendum. Today, he told us that decisions with national impact shouldn’t be left to just one village. Mahler also raised another concern, the number of tourists getting arrested at the airport for cannabis possession.

 

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism

“I think for any democracy like Belize, any developing nation, I don’t think a referendum in one specific area like Caye Caulker should be able to know, have impact on the rest of the nation. Now, if they want to talk about maybe a referendum or an internal referendum on whether they’re going to put a moratorium on docks, or if they’re going to keep the street as sand compared to pave it sometime in the future, then, they can have that. But for, for them having a referendum on a national issue, I don’t think that’s the way for our democracy to go.”

 

Reporter

“But it will be held on October 9th. What happens if they vote to legalize it, you think?”

 

Anthony Mahler

“Well, we’ll see. It’s a new territory that we’re charting and hopefully it can be scuttled before it happens.”

 

Reporter

“But in terms of tourism as well, don’t you feel like it will be maybe more inviting for other persons? Cause we’ve seen a lot of tourists coming in with marijuana and being charged for that.”

 

Anthony Mahler

“Well, I mean that’s a kind of policy decision at the airport. And nobody should be the detained for a stick of weed or something at the airport. I really don’t think so. If we say we have decriminalized it. But I don’t think, I think this thing, this deserves a deeper, more, global approach from our citizens. I don’t think we should just look at what happens in Caye Caulker and say, No, that has to be applied to the rest of the country.”