British Crown Blocks Bermuda’s Cannabis Bill

The cannabis laws in Britain’s oldest overseas territory harmed Black islanders disproportionately, Attorney General Kathy Lynn Simmons said, and represented the “stain of colonialism.” So the government in this Atlantic archipelago of 64,000 people approved legislation to liberalize the code. All that remained to enact it was the assent of the governor, the British monarch’s representative in the territory — usually a formality. But some 3,300 miles away, in Mother Britain, there was a problem. The foreign secretary had concluded that the bill would put Britain in violation of international drug control treaties that prohibit signatories from permitting the recreational use of cannabis.

And so Rena Lalgie, the crown-appointed governor of Bermuda, said last month she had “received an instruction” issued on “Her Majesty’s behalf, not to assent to the bill as drafted.”