 So we're very honored to have our last speaker for this session. He is Mark Golding. He comes to us from Jamaica. Mark Golding is the Minister of Justice of Jamaica and has law degrees from Oxford University, Norman Manley Law School, and the University of London, and served in Jamaica's Senate from 2007 to 2011 before becoming Minister of Justice in January 2012. Minister Golding played a pivotal role in Jamaica's sweeping marijuana reforms earlier this year, which included the decriminalization of possession for personal use as well as for religious, scientific, and medical purposes. He has become a global advocate for broad drug policy reform and lessening the harms of penal policy and drug prohibition. Minister Golding is committed to inclusiveness and has been working to ensure that Jamaica's traditional marijuana growers are granted a space in the new system. So thank you so much for being with us and please join me in welcoming Minister Mark Golding. Greetings, everyone. Jamaica and the House. I just want to thank the Drug Policy Alliance for putting on this conference again and for inviting me to be part of it. I just want to big up and thank the speakers who came before me who have been so amazing and wonderful. Let's have a round of applause for them. Jamaica has been on the receiving end of the drug wars, you know. The war against drugs meant for Jamaica that we had legislation in place that was very rigid, inflexible, complete prohibition in relation to drugs and in particular, in our context, cannabis, marijuana, and a ganja herbs that are really part of the fabric of our society. So the effect of that has been that we have had ganja herbs being a source of continuing antagonism between the use of the country and the state through law enforcement. When I came into the position I hold now in 2012, it was in a sense gratuitous because a window was opened in the United States of America which, of course, had been the main agent pursuing the war against drugs. So that window was opened when the current administration in the U.S. essentially adopted a kind of hands-off posture towards cannabis in so far as it affected U.S. states and the rights of U.S. states to pursue their own, as it were, domestic policies in relation to cannabis and we have seen what has happened in Colorado and Washington and elsewhere. We interpreted that in Jamaica as a window of opportunity to make a move after being, as it were, frozen for decades where we felt very vulnerable to the negative consequences of attempting any kind of reform of our ganja laws in Jamaica. So that was really an important window for us and we kind of jumped through the window and came up with a legislative reform which has been quite far-reaching. But before I go into that, I just wanted to also mention the context in which this reform has become necessary. So Jamaica is a place where ganja is grown all around the island by farmers, typically small farmers, persons who are not privileged members of society often have limited access to education and so on. Ganja is the sacrament of the Rastafari community. Rastafari is a spiritual movement which began in Jamaica in the early part of the last century and which has been oppressed from its, it came into existence. It has really been the subject of oppressive behavior by the state. So their first community at a place called Pinnacle was destroyed by the police in the early 1950s. There was a horrible incident in the 1960s at a place called Karel Gardens where again the state and people who were infected by a sense of fear and loathing towards the community basically carried out various atrocities on the community. In Kingston, a place called Bakawal which was a very poor community where Rastafari had moved to from other communities where they had been thrown out, where it was bulldozed to create inner-city housing and so on. So the Rastafari community in Jamaica has been at the forefront of the campaign for the legalization of Herb. So in this reform we start necessary to create a special space for the Rastafari community as well. So we are in a situation where up until this year roughly 15,000 cases a year came into our over burden court system for personal use of cannabis. The youths who were largely impacted by this were often arrested, treated roughly by the police or worse and ended up with a criminal record. And the effect of a criminal record was limited employment opportunities after that, limited travel opportunities with visas and so on being denied and it was a real human rights issue for us in our country. So the first thing we did was in 2014 we amended our criminal records legislation to provide that personal use would no longer attract a criminal record in Jamaica and to provide for automatic expungement of all persons in the past who had a criminal record for personal use. And many thousands of people are in a position to benefit from that. Then we sort of analyzed the treaties and saw what space there was under the treaties from a technical legal standpoint for us to have some policy room for manoeuvre. And so what we have done is the constitutional rights of freedom of religious expression. We have used this as a basis for saying that the Rastafari people who for the first time are recognizing in a public statute of Jamaica have a right to possession and use of ganja for their sacrament. They are also, yes, they can apply also for, they can apply for their places of worship to be designated as effectively exempt spaces where they can use their herbs and for lands on which they can cultivate their herbs for sacramental use. And we've also come up with a concept of an exempt event which is an event for the primary purpose of celebration of the Rastafari faith. And we had the first exempt event last weekend in Negril where Rastafari Roots Fest which was held a four-day festival in Negril in association with High Times magazine for the Jamaica Cannabis Cup. Yes. And I'm kind of proud to have signed that exemption order and to have seen that festival take place in Jamaica which I think is the start of many more to come and I would urge everyone next time if you can come down to Jamaica and enjoy the festival, please do, you know. We're also, we've created a cannabis licensing authority to create a regulated medical marijuana and therapeutic marijuana and industrial hemp industry for Jamaica. And the key to the success of that industry is going to be how to include the little man in it and the small farmer in it and those who have borne the brunt of the war against drugs for decades, you know. And we, at the same time, being a state governed by the rule of law and I'm part of the government so you don't know I have to be careful but we are trying to balance that imperative with our obligations to comply with the rule of law and our obligations are signatory to the treaties. It's a difficult balance to strike because those treaties are not really designed for, as has been said already, with the human rights and social rights and economic rights of people in mind. So, but give thanks to the idea of flexibility which has been propounded by the US government in terms of their approach to interpreting what the treaties require and in fact I'm just coming from Norway at a conference where the EU rep at that conference read from a statement which he said represents the EU position where basically they've adopted this idea of the treaties having substantial flexibility in them for allowing national states to design their own policies around that. Now, I must tell you, I have some disquiet with this whole question of flexibility though obviously it has benefits for persons who are unconscious that are trying to chart a space for themselves in this area but the truth is that the treaties are, they say what they say and for us to kind of pretend that they don't say what they say and that we can interpret them more or less how we'd like to. It's convenient but it doesn't really uphold the rule of law or an honest approach to the issue. So, this one guy starts coming up next April, I don't know what will transpire there but I would love it to be one in which we have strong mobilization towards reform of the treaties that will allow national states to have more honest open flexibility around designing their rules in a way that suits their people and respects the human rights, social rights, economic rights of their people. So, I was very happy to hear about the registration opportunity to join with a civil society movement that will try and bring some momentum around having the UNGAS be something meaningful and where the states that are implacably opposed to reform will see that there is a great wave of people all around the world who want to see and are demanding a better way forward than what we've had in the past with all the suffering that failed policies in the past have inflicted on people, especially poor people, black people and all the dispossessed people around the world. So, we're not going to think, you see any radical change at the UNGAS as such, but I think if it can be the platform for hopefully awareness and acceptance that there does need to be a review of these treaties and these treaties don't have any provision in them for review. Unlike modern treaties which have provisions in them where they have a system for reviewing themselves, these treaties have no system for reviewing themselves in them. So, it is a tough process to review them and to see change, but we are committed to that and we believe that it's necessary and it will be increasingly obviously untenable for Europe and the US and other countries to pretend that the treaties are all right and they work fine because they don't. And so, we need to move together, civil society and those governments that want to see reform. We need to move together and really put the pressure on to see an acceptance that there needs to be a review of these treaties so that we can come up with a better solution, a better system of governance for these substances called drugs. Ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to thank you all for hearing what we had to say today. I want again to pick up all the people who spoke before me who are so excellent. I feel humbled and inadequate to be here. But I give thanks nonetheless. Bless up. So, thank you so much again, Minister Golding. I've asked him to stay on the stage because he's about to be honored. And so, Ethan Natalman's going to take the stage to thank him and give him an award. But before that happens, I just want to again acknowledge all the incredible speakers for this first session this morning. That was really tremendous. So, thank you all for your time. And I was also reminded by my colleague, Hannah Hetzer, to acknowledge the many other international guests and speakers who we would love to have had with us today but for the repressive US government policy of forcing people to acknowledge, if they acknowledge any past drug use, they're not allowed to get visas and come to this country. So, just acknowledging that the struggle still continues, that stigma persists and we have a long struggle ahead of us, but I just want to acknowledge those people who we would love to have had with us today. So, thank you very much. And with that, I'll hand it over to Ethan Natalman. Thank you, Sharda. Yeah, you know, even as the Obama Administration has moved forward in so many good ways in terms of policy reform, the bureaucracy continues to do what it does. And I think at least three people who have received scholarships and planned to come were not permitted to come, simply for having admitted, engaged in the same activity that our president and half of the country has engaged in. So, we're going to keep trying to fight against this and maybe find ways to sue the government, but hopefully this will not happen in the future. One other reminder, I remember, with respect to the memorial before, if any of you know family or friends of people who were just memorialized before, let them know that there were a few seconds on the Friday plenary at this international conference where they were remembered, because I think it will mean something to them. Now, I hope many of you will make it to the awards dinner on Saturday night, but one of the awards we're going to give out right now, Mark could not stay for Saturday night and to take advantage of the opportunity of his being here. The award, until this year, has been called the Justice Gerald LeDen Award for Achievement in the Field of Law. Now, Justice, some of you heard of the Schaefer Commission that Nixon appointed back in the 70s, the governor of Pennsylvania Republican, who he assumed to come out with drug war recommendations and stunned everybody by coming out strong for drug policy reform. Well, a similar and even more radical process evolved in Canada around the same time when a law school dean named Gerald LeDen chaired a commission on drugs and came out with bold recommendations for reform. He was subsequently appointed to the Canadian Supreme Court. He appeared at the Early Drug Policy Foundation Conferences and the award was named in his honor. That said, and with great apologies to my Canadian friends and allies, we're going to rename the award. We clinches keep simply adding awards. This award has just been given to legislators and lawyers and ministers who have really stuck their necks out to do the right thing. You know, we were talking about history and that's been a theme at this conference. And one thing, of course, is to honor those who led. But there's also a need for us to continue to update our history as well and to not leave out the people who have placed such a major role in the modern era of drug policy reform. And the only way to do that is, I think, to rename some of these awards. With great apologies to the Canadians. With great thanks for kicking out the horrendous Harper government and bringing in Justin Trudeau in reform. I hope you will forgive me in saying that I am proud to say that this award will henceforth be known as the Kurt Schmoke Award for achievement in the field of law. And Kurt Schmoke, as many of you know, was the chief prosecutor of Baltimore in the 1980s who got elected mayor of Baltimore in late 1987 and who in early in his first term in the spring of 1988 stood up at the conference of mayors, threw away his prepared comments at the height of the drug war and said this drug war is ridiculous. It's crazy. We need a fundamentally different approach. And he played a role in opening up and advancing drug policy reform so far ahead out of the curve, so far ahead of his time in a way that showed a political courage that one almost never sees anywhere in the United States or anywhere else. Now Kurt could not be here this morning to be the first person to present the award. He will, however, be the surprise guest opening up the closing plenary at 5 p.m. tomorrow. So please be there. He asked if we could call the award a hyphenated award, the LaDen Schmoke Award, but the DPA board and staff decided let's just keep it clean and call it the Kurt Schmoke Award and we'll continue to acknowledge Justice LaDen. So henceforth will be the Kurt Schmoke Award for achievement in the field of law. It's going to be an honor to present this to Minister Golding. I mean, you heard, how often do you hear Minister of Justice talk about working with High Times Magazine to make sure a cannabis cup can speak to this level of frankness? And in talking about Jamaica's radical reform of ganja, right, just short of legalization, but with all sorts of innovations, I have to acknowledge just a few other people. One of whom many of you know is the longtime activist in Jamaica, Paul Chang. Right? There was one guy doing it, pushing it for, you know, almost two decades, right? And then there was this second group. There were two brave politicians from different political parties who agreed on almost nothing else except changing the ganja laws. Delano's separate from the Jamaica Labor Party and Paul Burke from the People's National Party who then took the ball and began to move it down the field in our American terms, but it took the leadership of the politician in government to bring it over the goal line, over the finish line, and that was Mark Golding. It now gives me great honor to ask my friend and fellow advocate Professor Charles Nessin, longtime professor at Harvard Law School, the founder of the Berkman Center on Internet and Technology, somebody with a close personal connection both to Jamaica ganja reform and drug policy reform to come up and present this award to Mark Golding. I am a pro bono counsel to the Westmoreland Hemp and Ganja Farmers Association. It's in that capacity that I had the pleasure of working and help organizing this cannabis cup event from which I've just come. This event is a tribute in itself to Mark Golding, and I'd like just to spend a moment to describe its significance to you. It opens up a way of thinking about ganja, marijuana, that isn't recreation, that isn't medicinal. It is spiritual. It is a way of thinking about consuming, addressing, understanding marijuana that has huge appeal. Mark Golding, as the minister of justice, responded to the amendment to the Jamaican Constitution in 2011, which provided for freedom of conscience and led the incorporation in their legalization campaign of recognition of Rastafara. Now Rastafara is something I'm sure most of you know little about, but I warmly encourage you to be curious. These are the folks who have been on the bottom in Jamaica. From the time of the sugar plantation slavery to the date right today, they rebelled against Babylon and they fought and acted out their freedom. They are the people who grew the grass in Westmoreland. They're the ones who got burned out. They're the ones who served time in the penitentiary. And Mark Golding is now leading a resurgence up from the bottom that expresses a freedom. It is the essence of reggae revival and the combination of Jamaican music, spirit, culture and ganja is a remarkable accomplishment. In the books, I am so proud to present the first Kurt Schmoke Award to the leader of this... Thank you very much Charlie, Professor Nessen Ethan and the Drug Policy Alliance for this honour, this profound honour. In the name of Kurt Schmoke who I want to learn about recently but you know he's part of the spirit that is pervasive in this conference of the need for change and commitment to making the world a better place. And if all of I and I can move forward in that direction and be resolute and strong I'm sure we can achieve a much better world and that is what we must commit ourselves to because we're all privileged people who have been blessed to be here. I want to just give thanks once again for considering Jamaica, Aulika Island, we live about with Talawa as we're saying Jamaica we feel you know we have a place to teach the world too about you know what life is about too and how to fight against oppression. We come out of the bitterest oppression of our country. Slave in Jamaica was the wickedest and we still carry those scars and we have to do what is necessary to right those wrongs and heal those wounds and what I've been doing recently is a small part of it but I feel very blessed for having been able to play that role. Give thanks. Okay, next session you're dismissed.