MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica - Jamaica has long bemoaned its reputation as the land of ganja.

It has enforced draconian drug laws and spent millions on public education to stem its distinction as a pot mecca. But its role as a major supplier of illicit marijuana to the United States and its international image - led by the likes of Bob Marley, whose Rastafarian faith considers smoking up a religious act - have been too strong to overcome.

Now, its leaders smell something else: opportunity.

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ISRAEL-BORN BUSINESSMAN Boaz Wachtel has called for the Jamaican Government to follow in the footsteps of Uruguay and legalise ganja, without fear of upsetting Uncle Sam and the United Nations (UN).

Wachtel, chairman of Creso Pharma, a medical marijuana company based in Australia, during his opening speech at CanEx at the Montego Bay Convention Centre on Friday, said the United States was crumbling from within and ganja is being medicalised and legalised in parts of the country, while the UN was a frozen archaic body.

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JAMAICA is to install cannabis kiosks at its airport terminals - so tourists can start using the drug as soon as they touch down.

Officials are looking at ways the country can cash in on cannabis, which Jamaica decriminalised last year in the hope of emulating the US where legal sales of the drug raised UKP4billion last year.

They plan to offer the drug in arrival halls and seaports. Tourists would be able to register to use marijuana at the kiosks and then pick up the drugs before continuing to their holiday destinations.

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IT HAS been little over a year since the much-anticipated amendments to the Dangerous Drugs Act were passed into law in April 2015 with much attendant fanfare.

It is fair comment that a year is a relatively short period to critique and/or proffer any fair assessment of the legal perspective of cannabis as it relates to the current situation without offering a historical perspective on the one hand, and an anticipatory perspective on the other.

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I REMEMBER in 2011 when Ras Astor Black built his political campaign around the development of a marijuana industry. His exact words to me in an interview ring clear:

"Every country around us have what we have: sun sea and sand. In fact, walk past a lot of our hotels and you smell the same fried chicken dem frying in Miami. What we have that they don't is good ganja. And we need to develop a tourism product around it."

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THE GOVERNMENT is targeting annual revenue of US$2 billion from the ganja industry when regulations to govern the sector are finally in place.

Minister of Science, Energy and Technology Dr Andrew Wheatley told The Sunday Gleaner of the revenue target, indicating that plans are on in earnest to establish the legal ganja industry, with regulations to govern the trade having been sent to the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel by the Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA).

But Barbara Brohl, executive director of the Colorado Department of Revenue, which is responsible for the regulation and oversight of the ganja industry in that American state, is warning that before Jamaica begins to count the dollars from the industry, it needs to establish clearly why the industry is being legalised and gather data on the sector.

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UNLIKE MARIO Deane, Donnasha Dobson is happily alive and presumably, enjoying good health and, personal freedom.

Yet, Ms Dobson's case, reported on in this newspaper a week ago, is one that the police chief, the justice and security ministers, and the Office of the Public Defender ought to have had under review and should do, if they didn't although the latter body might possibly claim that it falls outside its mandate.

An important context to this case, ironically, was highlighted last week in the significant public discussion over the proposed regulations to govern the cannabis industry following the legalisation of the industrial-scale growing of marijuana for medicinal and other products. The possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use and the smoking of the drug in public has been decriminalised.

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THE National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) says it is taking action to stem the prevalence of drug use among young people by educating them.

"Our primary responsibility right now is protecting young people from the negative consequences of using [drugs]," Executive Director of the NCDA, Michael Tucker told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

This comes on the heels of reports that students were ingesting marijuana in candies and the recent legislative amendment to the Dangerous Drugs Act, which created several opportunities for the use of marijuana in Jamaica because of the decriminalisation of small amounts of the weed.

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KINGSTON, Jamaica - Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Anthony Hylton, says Jamaica intends to lead a charge in the United Nations to effect changes to the international treaties concerning marijuana.

The aim is to change the schedule class of marijuana in light of scientific studies that have proven its therapeutic benefits and medicinal value.

"We believe that the schedule in which marijuana is now placed, which is one of the highest schedules as a drug, we believe that it should be removed from that schedule and looked at in the light of... the evidence, which has revealed its strong medicinal (value)," Hylton said, while addressing a session of the recently concluded Jamaica Investment Forum (JIF) at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James.

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THE EDITOR, Sir:

I don't want to be singled out as the naysayer in this euphoria that is surrounding the decriminalisation of marijuana. It would, however, be remiss of me if I did not sound caution and indicate that the very same ingredients that make it positively potent will be progressively problematic if abused.

This is not a view that the plant should not be used and researched and made to benefit Jamaica and Jamaicans; it is a call for care and public education in the use and abuse of this product.

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(AP) - Marijuana has been pervasive but illegal in Jamaica for decades, but on Tuesday night Parliament gave final legislative approval to an act decriminalizing small amounts of it and establishing a licensing agency to regulate a lawful medical marijuana industry. The amendments pave the way for a "cannabis licensing authority" to be established to deal with regulating the cultivation and distribution of marijuana for medical and scientific purposes. Officials say the island's governor-general will soon sign the measure into law. The act makes possession of up to two ounces of marijuana a petty offense that could result in a ticket but not in a criminal record. Cultivation of five or fewer plants on any premises will be permitted. And tourists who are prescribed medical marijuana abroad will soon be able to apply for permits authorizing them to legally buy small amounts.

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EXECUTIVE director of the National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA), Michael Tucker, has warned that the misinformation circulating among Jamaicans at this time about marijuana could be dangerous.

"Misunderstanding and misperception is very dangerous in an environment like this," Tucker told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

"There is no legalisation on the table right now... It's not acceptable or legal for any and everybody to grow or sell marijuana. In fact, it's not even legal to buy it. So there is a lot of misunderstanding about what really is happening... more needs to be said, and people need to know what is really happening," he stated.

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KINGSTON, Jamaica - Senators today poked more holes in the legislation now being debated in the upper house to decriminalise ganja.

The Opposition, although agreeing that the law is a good move, are not the only ones asking for the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Bill to be tidied up.

Government Senator, KD Knight, said limiting the cultivation of marijuana to the Rastafarian community was "unfair", while suggesting that allowing the use of ganja for medicinal purposes, would in essence make it legal, even though legalising ganja is not the aim of the Bill.

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Regarding Louis Moyston's excellent column in The Agenda of Sunday, February 1, 2015, Jamaica should by no means let the petty concerns of the 'drug war' official, William Brownfield of the US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, stall ganja law reform.

An obsolete United Nations treaty passed in ignorance back in 1961 that violates human rights conventions is no reason for Jamaica to remain stuck in the past. A far more important US representative is US President Barack Obama.

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US Not Comfortable With Jamaica's Push to Decriminalise Weed

WASHINGTON, DC, USA - The United States Government has signalled some discomfort with Jamaica's move to decriminalise marijuana for specific uses.

According to assistant secretary of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), William R Brownfield, there is a possibility that the move could increase inflows of marijuana from Jamaica that now accounts for 80 per cent of ganja illegally smuggled into that country.

Brownfield said that, while the US must be tolerant of national policies to combat the illicit trade of ganja, Jamaica must be mindful of international drug treaties to which it is a signatory.

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THE report 'Ganja worry' (Jamaica Observer, January 29, 2015), presents the thinking of William R Brownfield, assistant secretary of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, on the recent developments of the new ganja regime in Jamaica. He was quick to point out that this change will see increased export of the crop to the United States, and warned of Jamaica's legal obligation to the international treaties.

He speaks as if Jamaica is the only country moving towards change. He is obviously oblivious about changes all over the world, including its major ally Israel. The international treaties Jamaica has signed are not written in stone. They were prepared for a world very much different from the present. Their foundations were built on myths and anecdotal evidence. Since 1922, there have been many commissions and research projects providing scientific studies, dispelling those myth and anecdotal evidence. The time has come to reform those treaties. Who will lead the process in Jamaica?

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THE United States Government says it welcomes discussion and debate on drug policy and that it is up to the people of Jamaica to decide which policies are most appropriate for the country within the realms of international law.

Yesterday's declaration came amidst a Jamaica Observer report suggesting that the US is uncomfortable with recent moves to decriminalise ganja for personal use in Jamaica.

"We recognise that it is important to examine what works and to discuss the trends and challenges our neighbours are facing. The US and Jamaica have a strong law-enforcement and security partnership. Our law enforcement agencies work together to combat transnational criminal networks and international drug trafficking and the violence they breed," Joshua Polacheck, counsellor for public affairs at the US Embassy Kingston, told the Observer.

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KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) - Jamaica's Senate on Friday started debating a bill that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of pot and establish a licensing agency to regulate a lawful medical marijuana industry on the island where the drug has long been pervasive but prohibited.

Justice Minister Mark Golding, who introduced the legislation to the upper house, said it would establish a "cannabis licensing authority" to deal with regulations on cultivation and distribution of marijuana and industrial hemp for medical, scientific and therapeutic purposes.

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KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) - According to Jamaica's justice minister, legislation has been drafted to decriminalize marijuana on the island where the drug has been pervasive but prohibited for a century.

Mark Golding told reporters that lawmakers should make possession of 2 ounces or less a petty offense before the end of 2014. He also expects decriminalization for religious purposes to be authorized by then, allowing adherents of the homegrown Rastafarian spiritual movement to ritually smoke marijuana, which they consider a "holy herb," without fear of arrest.

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JAMAICA'S justice minister has said legislation has been drafted to decriminalise marijuana on the Caribbean island where the drug has been pervasive but prohibited for a century.

Mark Golding told reporters that parliament should make possession of two ounces or less a petty offence before the end of 2014.

He also expects decriminalisation for religious purposes to be authorised by then, allowing adherents of the homegrown Rastafarian spiritual movement to ritually smoke marijuana - which they consider a "holy herb" - without fear of arrest.

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