Vanuatu’s National Drug Squad raided marijuana growers on Malekula, part of the 80-island archipelago that makes up the country, and rounded up 20 villagers who were taken to jail in the capital, Port Vila.[1] Police also seized 40 bags of freshly harvested marijuana in the raid.[1]
The raid drew a sympathetic response from the island’s member of parliament, Donna Browny, who told Radio New Zealand that people were justified in planting marijuana to earn money for their children’s school fees when the copra price was down and the government had found no alternative commodity to replace it.[1] She urged leniency for the villagers, saying they had planted pot instead of coconut trees because they needed the money.[1]
Police used the annual Law Week to warn that marijuana growing and use were on the rise, with a drug squad spokesman telling a cannabis awareness session that Vanuatu was lucky not yet to have seen hard drugs such as cocaine or opium but faced that risk at the current trend, according to an account in the Vanuatu News.[1] The Vanuatu Association of NGOs was raising similar concerns, with spokesman Henry Vira telling Radio New Zealand that marijuana use was rising among young people and that youths were being arrested every week for use, possession or cultivation.[1]