September 30 was a red-letter day for ganja growers in Jamaica
TUESDAY, September 30 was a red-letter day for ganja growers in Jamaica.
They have been waiting a long time for the fundamental changes which
are now being made to the Dangerous Drugs Act. Justice Minister Senator
Mark Golding was the one who brought the good news for them as he
announced Cabinet's approval of provisions including permits to
cultivate, possess, import, trade, and distribute ganja for medical and
scientific purposes under licence.
Parliamentarians left Gordon House smiling as, no doubt, they saw a win-win situation for either camp. The JLP can
On the surface, these adjustments are quite in keeping with liberal trends, the advancement of human rights, and plain common sense. And, as Golding himself admits, there is little that is new in the thought process that has gone into the liberalisation of ganja.
In fact, ganja has been fighting to gain respectability for a long time, ever since its introduction to Jamaica over 100 years ago when it was brought in by the first wave of indentured Indian labourers. They regarded the plant as sacred to their religion and customs, and defended their right to smoke it. However, the
Ganja was thereafter viewed with suspicion and became inextricably linked to the Rastafarian movement which adopted it as a sacrament. They instituted it from the belief that it was grown on King Solomon's grave (Psalm 104: 14). The so-called Rasta riots in Coral Gardens of 1963, which saw battle lines drawn between the police (State) and the movement, led to a tightening of the ganja laws with mandatory prison sentencing introduced in 1964 for growing the weed. That sentence was removed in 1972. Then in 1977, while some of our present members of parliament were still wearing short pants, a joint parliamentary committee on ganja recommended that personal use be decriminalised and up to two ounces be permitted on premises without punishment.
Fast-forward to 2014, where
to smoke and cause negative behaviours.
And, explain to me, for example, how a police officer will differentiate between a two-ounce spliff and a three-ounce-or-more spliff. And how many two-ounce spliffs can you consume per day without detection, or for that matter carry around with you for trade or for use at different times during a single day?
Note that Golding, who is now unofficially our minister of ganja, has crafted into the announcement that "save for the specific reforms that we have announced, the criminal sanctions for illicit activities involving ganja remain as currently set out in the Dangerous Drugs Act".
But somebody had better tell that to the good folks who were lighting up on Duke Street on Tuesday evening.
While I have my reservations about the general Bill, I congratulate the lawmakers on the proposed action to remove all the roadblocks to allowing Jamaica to benefit from medical marijuana and industrial hemp. The intention is to legalise the commercial bonanza expected from a proper scientific approach under licence. The Government needs to steer us around the potholes of wrong perception and the 'free-up-the-weed' mentality which some have taken to mean grow it, buy it, and smoke it wherever you like.
"We need now to flesh out the specifics of the licence and framework to go hand in hand once the amendments have been approved," said the minister.
The local growers' associations welcome this approach as they have been going about cultivating the weed in a productive and serious, even if illegal manner for years. Some might think ganja grows just like an ordinary weed, but not so. The good farmer sows the seeds first of all in a nursery, then transplants to the field when the stalks are one-foot high.
The plants reach maturity after five months, during which they have been carefully fertilised and watered constantly. The plots are weeded to prevent grass from choking the plants, and sprayed with insecticides.
So there is much work invested in the process of growing. When it's harvest time the branches and leaves are carefully cut and laid out to dry on tarpaulins, and then packed in stout crocus bags. The farm labourers then jump and stamp on the bags with their feet in order to compact and store the leaves. Seeds are saved for replanting or for sale to other farmers.
Our parliamentarians who now have the ganja industry in the palm of their hands should also inform themselves of the different varieties that will be legal or illegal. Sinsemilla is the generic term for the strongest variety and that includes Burr, Cotton and Lamb's Bread. McConey is mild, Goat's Horn is less popular but equally mild, while Bush, Collie and Mad are the regular popularly grown varieties.
Across Jamaica there are several regions known for lush ganja farming, in particular St Ann and Westmoreland. In the 1970s, when the trade was running and the planes were practically dropping from the sky, I landed in one such area and was fascinated by the everyday stories and real-life adventures of the growers, the workers, and the buyers whom I occasionally met.
One legendary farmer had large acres under cultivation and employed nearly 100 workers. He built storerooms in hideaway places and carried out his sales at night in the bushes with the 'white men' who came with wads of the money (US$) packed in boxes, raw cash, in their car trunks. In those days money flowed like Sweet Afton and I remember visiting a primary school and being shocked as the students flashed out piles of 'red money' $20 notes -- the maximum Jamaica currency denomination in those days -- one of which I barely had in my wallet.
I saw for myself where planes landed regularly, night or day on a nearby airstrip, and nearly got into trouble for my curiousity and sense of adventure.
It happened like this. Going home after work, a friend of mine suggested we divert to our neighbouring airstrip to watch a plane that was just landing. As we entered the little compound we were nearly run over by a local businessman who was driving hurriedly away from the area.
As we approached the plane on the ground we saw the pilot, a blonde young man, hastily getting back into the cockpit and taking off in those few, swift seconds without any cargo. We later learnt that he had landed at the wrong strip, the businessman had remonstrated with him and sent him to another strip nearby where, as luck would have it, he crashed and spoilt the party.
That was not the end of the story. As we looked around I suddenly realised that I was the centre of attraction for the onlookers who had gathered for their usual spectator sport of ganja loading.
They were staring in amazement, obviously surmising -- wrongly, of course -- that I was to have been the pickup man. What else could I have been doing there? To say that I hightailed it out of the compound is putting it mildly. It took some time before I was able to shed my hero image at the local bars and regain
my innocence.
A few years later the planes stopped coming as the Reagan Administration in America escalated its drug-enforcement laws and the steady stream of ganja income slowed down in Jamaica.
Today, we are being told that the outlawed ganja is going to be the saviour of Jamaica's economy. Well, one of, as it will have to contend with the humble Goat Islands and other pipeline projects for that title.
There is one more test to come. United Nations conventions limit the use of marijuana for anything except medicinal purposes. We will have to fight that battle on the grounds of our sovereign rights. We will be supported and applauded by those powerful interests who are behind the gay rights movement as well as the pro-ganja cause. We will know who our friends are. But are they in the right places?
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