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. 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". The Governor-General stated that the Government will continue to drive the growth and job creation agenda through debt management; reform of the tax, pension and financial systems; implementation of a new Special Economic Zones regime; trade facilitation; expansion of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise financing and capacity development; labour market reform; land titling initiatives; and undertaking a strategic plan for the outsourcing industry. Some of the critical Bills include: the Arbitration Bill, which governs the conduct of domestic and international arbitration in Jamaica; a Constitution (Amendment) Bill to replace Her Majesty the Queen with a Non-Executive President as Head of State; a Constitution (Amendment) Bill to address the judicial review of the Director of Public Prosecutions; and the Criminal Justice (Plea Negotiations and Agreements) (Amendment) Bill – which provides 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. Legislation will also be put in place to create fixed election dates and term limits for the Prime Minister; provide for impeachment proceedings to be brought against corrupt public officials and Parliamentarians; and the Integrity Commission Bill, which will establish a Single Anti-Corruption Body.
– 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.)