On the evening of Friday 24 May 2019, during a routine patrol, the police marine unit stopped a local canoe named “Corrie” about one hundred yards off Mathurin Point in Vieux Fort.[1] Officers found and seized sixty-three pounds (about 28.6 kg) of what appeared to be cannabis on board.[1] Vieux Fort resident Martinez Fontenelle was arrested and charged with possession of a controlled drug.[1] He was taken to the Second District Court and granted bail in an undisclosed amount.[2]
The second occupant jumped overboard to try to escape, and searches of the area found him neither then nor later.[1] On Tuesday 28 May 2019 police said a male body, believed to be the second occupant of the canoe, had been recovered at a beach along Mathurin Point.[1] Police said formal identification had not been made and that the link to the canoe could not be confirmed at that time.[1] The Royal Saint Lucia Police Force announced the interception and the cannabis find in a statement on 30 May 2019.[1]
Andre De Caires, chairman of the Cannabis Movement, an advocacy group pushing for legal cannabis in Saint Lucia, called the interception “unfortunate” and said the case showed the harm of the possession laws.[3] “It’s very unfortunate that ganja does not kill users, but illegal possession of it does,” De Caires said, adding that many people’s lives had been destroyed and people had died because of the illegality of cannabis.[3] De Caires said the group was in talks with Commerce Minister Bradley Felix, the government’s point man on cannabis, who had asked for a budget for a planned national education programme that the group intended to submit that week.[3]
