The Indian-based Lalit hotel and hospitality group has urged the Mauritius government to change its whole approach to cannabis and make it legal.
It argues that legalization will help tackle the Indian Ocean Island’s substance abuse problems, allow citizens to de-stress, and create a new economy.
It made the submission to the Committee on the Legalization and De-Criminalisation of Cannabis set up by the National Agency for Drug Control (NADC) on 26 June 2026, UN World Drug Day.
The group, which has long advocated a relaxation of cannabis, says the influx of synthetic drugs (‘simik’) into Mauritian society needs to be acknowledged by government, and acted upon.
“So, a new social reality has been created, and is being perpetuated by the continued repression of the less harmful substances used for de-stressing” it said in its submission.
“Both gandya and alcohol are substances that can easily be, and generally are, under social control. They should not be left under police control. Once the police control and suppress these socially-controllable ways of relaxing, then the State is effectively pushing ordinary people into the clutches of the Mafia.
“The Mafia, in turn, sells to whoever they want whatever they want. They judge only by the easiest to get away with at the highest profits at any one moment. At the moment, it is “simik”. Tomorrow it could be something even worse.
LALIT Demands 18 June 2026, Presented to NADC
1. That the Police Commissioner immediately announce, as the London Police Chief did in 2001, that it is not his department’s priority to run after anyone who has a bit of gandya on them.
2. The Government must simultaneously legislate that it is no longer illegal for anyone to plant up to a certain number of plants of gandya for their own personal use, or to have a certain amount in their possession. These measures will cause the price to drop drastically, and will free youngsters from links with the entire Mafia. Social control can be re-established in each neighbourhood this way.
3. There must be an industry for producing Cannabis under license for medicinal purposes and for recreational purposes. Medical practitioners must be free to prescribe Cannabis-based medicines and all useful medicinal drugs, without a huge repressive bureaucracy, which has the opposite effect of that intended.
4. The distribution and sale of cannabis products must also be under license, and must include a reasonable tax.
5. Alcoholic drinks like beer, port and cider, which contain less alcohol must be de-taxed. Alcohol must once again be able to be consumed on shop verandah’s and under trees in public spaces. Remember that in Mauritius there is no public transport at night. The level of alcohol for driving could be raised to a reasonable level by international standards. This way socially controlled consumption of alcohol will gradually re-instate itself.
6. All those dependent on opiates must be able to get their Methadone or other weaning substance at local Dispensaries. The de-centralization will permit social control on those awaiting their medicine.
7. Institutions must help people who have become dependent to be able, when they feel strong enough to do so, to go through the pain of de-tox and the brave enterprise of rehabilitating themselves, while in the process of also getting a job, establishing friendships, and getting housing.
8. The State must make creation of productive industries its priority, thus creating jobs for all and ensuring housing for all.
9. People must be encouraged to join political organizations in order to struggle to create a new society where there is more freedom, more equality of possessions and of revenue, more genuine security, more justice, and generalized peace. In short, we need to create a world in which we have a shared idea of a “future” for all of us. It is this shared hope that reduces the unbearable stress of living a life without any apparent future.
10. Social control is what works, if the State just backs off from its violent threats, and its bureaucratic labyrinth of systems of repressive control.
Lalit says cannabis or, colloquially “gandya”, has a long tradition, ‘ancestral in fact’, in Mauritius.
It has been used in groups for relaxation and recreation from slave times, through indenture and into modern society. It has been used in popular religions of different kinds, too, and quite openly in the form of “bhang” or in the form of inhaling its smoke.
Cannabis was perfectly legal until 1923. People planted what they used. It was also sold under government license at what were called “gandya ke dukann”, corner stores, just as until today shops are licensed to sell liquor or cigarettes.
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