Jamaican lawmakers will debate a constitutional amendment that would replace Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as head of state and make the island a republic. 
 
 QuickTake Marijuana Legalization 
 
 The proposal is a “major action item” on the new government’s 2016-2017 legislative agenda, and would replace the Queen with a Non-Executive President, Governor General Sir Patrick Allen said Thursday in a speech to parliament posted on the government’s website. 
 
 Jamaican Labour Party leader Andrew Holness scraped a narrow win in general elections in February as voters opted for promises of tax cuts and a higher minimum wage over the previous government’s austerity program. The legislative agenda also includes a proposal to set fixed election dates and term limits for the Prime Minister, as well as a proposal to fully legalize marijuana for “specified purposes.” 
 
 The measures would need to be passed by Parliament to become law. The government also plans to set up a single anti-corruption body, and reform the tax and pension system, Allen said. 
 
 The Queen is also head of state of other Caribbean nations, including Barbados and the Bahamas. ||||| THE Government has signalled that it intends to make good on its promise to sever colonial ties with Britain by bringing a Constitution amendment bill to Parliament to have the Queen of England Elizabeth ll, replaced with a non-executive president as head of state. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This would do away with the governor general as the Queen’s representative here, and make Jamaica a republic. A non-executive president, like the governor general, would still be a symbolic leader and perform a representative and civic role but with no powers to make policy. But he or she could use discretionary powers for extraordinary political intervention, based on the Constitution. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Governor General Sir Patrick Allen, in the 2016/2017 Throne Speech to mark the opening of the new session of Parliament, announced the plan to move to republican status, while outlining a raft of other measures that are now on the legislative agenda. 
 
 
 
 
 
 The new Administration appears set on doing what former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in her inauguration speech following her party’s victory in the 2011 general election, had proposed to do. Simpson Miller said then that as Jamaica celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence, the Government would "initiate the process for our detachment from the Monarchy to become a republic with our own indigenous president as head of state". 
 
 
 
 
 
 Also on top of the agenda is legislation for fixed election dates (local and general) and term limits for the prime minister. Sir Patrick announced, too, that a National Human Rights Institute (NHRI) is to be set up in law and the Office of the Public Defender "enhanced to incorporate the NHRI". 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Government in 2014 started dialogue with the Commonwealth Secretariat to set up the body in compliance with a set of guiding standards adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993. 
 
 The promised Impeachment Bill is also to be brought to the House. The law will allow for criminal proceedings to be brought against corrupt public officials and parliamentarians. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Among the other pieces of legislation are: the Bill to amend the INDECOM Act; a bill to amend the Constitution to address the judicial review of the director of public prosecutions; and the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill to provide for reduced sentences on guilty pleas. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Additionally, the Governor General said the Government has proposed that the Dangerous Drugs Act is to be further amended to "give full legislation" for marijuana to be used for specified purposes. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Lawmakers are also expected to carry through other pieces of legislation that are already in train. These include the Integrity Commission Bill; the Arbitration Bill; and the Judicature (Resident Magistrate) (Amendment) Bill; the Law Reform (Notice of Alibi) Bill, which stalled in the House years ago when members of parliament protested the provisions; and the Mutual Assistance (Criminal Matters) (Amendment) Bill to allow for the introduction of evidence by closed circuit television link and video-recorded evidence. Changes are also slated for the Trafficking in Persons Bill to give the court powers to prosecute offences under the Act without a jury, while legislation to govern judicial accountability for performance and behaviour in office, is also expected to feature during the year. ||||| Lawmakers pass anticipated legislation that reduces possession of small quantities to a petty offence and paves way for medical cannabis industry 
 
 Jamaican lawmakers have passed an act to decriminalise small amounts of marijuana and establish a licensing agency to regulate a lawful medical cannabis industry on the island. 
 
 After several hours of debate legislators in the lower house on Tuesday gave final passage to drug law amendments that make possession of up to 2oz (56.6g) of marijuana a petty offence that would not result in a criminal record. Cultivation of five or fewer plants on any premises would be permitted in Jamaica, where the drug has long been culturally entrenched but illegal. 
 
 The law paves the way for a licensing authority to be set up to deal with regulations on cultivation and distribution of marijuana for medical, scientific and therapeutic purposes. 
 
 Rastafarians can also legally use marijuana for religious purposes for the first time on the island where the spiritual movement was founded in the 1930s. Tourists prescribed medical marijuana abroad will be able to apply for permits at a cost authorising them to legally buy small amounts of “ganja”, as it is known locally. 
 
 Peter Bunting, the island’s national security minister, said the Jamaican government did not plan to soften its stance on transnational drug trafficking or cultivation of illegal plots. 
 
 “The passage of this legislation does not create a free-for-all in the growing, transporting, dealing or exporting of ganja. The security forces will continue to rigorously enforce Jamaican law consistent with our international treaty obligations,” Bunting said in parliament. 
 
 William Brownfield, the US assistant secretary for counter-narcotics affairs, said before the vote that “Jamaican law is of course Jamaica’s own business and Jamaica’s sovereign decision”. But he noted that the trafficking of marijuana into the US remained illegal. 
 
 “We expect that Jamaica and all states party to the UN drug conventions will uphold their obligations, including a firm commitment to combating and dismantling criminal organisations involved in drug trafficking,” he said. 
 
 For decades debate has raged in Jamaica over relaxing laws prohibiting ganja. Previous efforts to decriminalise small amounts have been scuttled because officials feared they would violate international treaties and bring sanctions from Washington. 
 
 But after changes in other countries, Jamaican officials hope the island could become a player in the nascent medical marijuana industry, health tourism and the development of innovative pot-derived items. Local scientists already have a history of creating marijuana-derived products, such as “Canasol”, which helps relieve pressure in the eyes of glaucoma patients. 
 
 On Tuesday the Jamaican commerce minister, Anthony Hylton, said the industry held “great potential” for Jamaica, which is labouring under its latest loan programme with the International Monetary Fund. 
 
 On Tuesday Alaska became the third US state to legalise the recreational use of marijuana for adults. More than 20 US states allow some form of medical marijuana and in 2014 Colorado and Washington legalised personal use. 
 
 Elsewhere in the Americas, Uruguay in 2014 became the first nation to create a legal marijuana market. In Argentina personal possession was decriminalised under a 2009 supreme court ruling that jail time for small amounts of drugs violated the country’s constitution.
– Jamaican lawmakers have apparently had a lot on their minds lately, as per the government's just-released 2016-2017 legislative agenda, with proposals including amending the country's constitution to dump Queen Elizabeth II as the head of state and make Jamaica a republic, scheduling fixed election dates, ensuring term limits for the PM, revamping the tax and pension setup—and (in what may be of most interest to those stateside) making marijuana legal for "specified purposes," Bloomberg reports. Whew! These measures and others, announced in a speech to Parliament by Governor-General Patrick Allen on the government website, would need to get Parliament's OK before becoming the law of the land. As the Jamaica Observer explains, making the nation a republic would involve putting in place a non-executive president, who would be more of a figurehead and wouldn't play a policymaking role. But "he or she could use discretionary powers for extraordinary political intervention, based on the Constitution." As for the pot proposal, no word on what exactly those "specified purposes" would entail. (A Bob Marley-inspired novel won the Booker Prize for Fiction.)