Pubdate: Tue, 20 Feb 2001
Source: Associated Press
Section: International News
Copyright: 2001 Associated Press
Author: Matthew J Rosenberg, Associated Press Writer

LATEST VICTIM OF GLOBALIZATION: JAMAICA'S MARIJUANA CROP

HANSON DISTRICT, Jamaica -- From a distance, the fiery rays of the 
Caribbean sun appear to set a marijuana field ablaze, bathing the hardy 
plants in smoldering red and orange.

But a farmer named Thomas tells of a different tale as he lights a fat 
marijuana spliff: a tale of an industry scorched at both ends - by global 
competition and the U.S.-led war on drugs.

"This I grow in my own field, the best in Jamaica, high-grade," says 
Thomas, standing on the veranda of his small cement home and letting out a 
billow of blue smoke. "But I don't grow so much anymore."

Like its banana and sugar industry, Jamaica's once lucrative marijuana 
production has fallen a long way since the 1970s, when small planes would 
land regularly to fly the precious contraband to the United States.

Caribbean marijuana, largely a Jamaican affair, fed about 20 percent of 
world consumption in those days. Today it accounts for less than 5 percent, 
according to the U.N. Caribbean Drug Control Coordinating Mechanism, a 
drug-monitoring program based in Barbados.

"Ganja has been mashed up just like everything we grow ... the bananas, the 
sugar. The ganja, it doesn't sell anymore," says Thomas, 66, who for 40 
years has been growing the hemp on the six-acre plot his grandfather once 
used to raise tomatoes and cucumbers.

Marijuana growing and consumption is illegal in Jamaica, which is why 
Thomas and other growers won't let their surnames be published. But it's 
tolerated.

Another reason for anonymity is an agreement by the Jamaican government 
that allows American agents to burn illegal crops.

In 1991, Jamaica produced 705 tons of marijuana, according to the U.S. 
State Department. The department's most recent figures show a yield of 235 
tons in 1997.

"I made enough money in those days," says Omar, another farmer. He and 
Thomas say they used to make around $4,000 a year, enough to live on 
comfortably. Now, they make half that.

By the early 1980s marijuana had gained widespread local acceptance with 
the blessing of reggae heroes like Bob Marley. But it had also earned the 
full attention of America's drug fighters.

U.S. customs agents were on the alert and hundreds of acres of fields 
throughout the Caribbean were burned.

Thomas says his fields were torched four times.

The U.S. drive also boosted the price for marijuana in North America, the 
weed's largest market.

Americans and Canadians responded by growing their own, hardier strains.

American marijuana "is far superior to Jamaican," says Steve Bloom, the 
senior editor at High Times magazine, the bible of American aficionados. 
"Jamaican bud is great; you just have to smoke a lot."

North American marijuana tends to be grown in greenhouses where 
temperature, water and light are controlled.

Jamaican marijuana is grown now on remote hillsides and in marshes and 
swamps where it is harder to detect but is hostage to the weather.

Mexican marijuana has also cut into Jamaica's market, even though it's 
considered poor because it's dried out for shipping. American officials say 
more is flowing into the United States with the increase in legitimate 
trade under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Because Mexican marijuana is so accessible, even Jamaican traffickers 
operating in the United States buy it to sell.

Despite Jamaican marijuana's sharp decline in the world, the local market 
keeps a slimmed-down industry relatively healthy.

The plant was originally brought to Jamaica by Indian indentured laborers 
in the 19th century. Plantation owners used it as a medicinal herb. Then 
its popularity spread with the advent in the 1930s of Rastafarianism, whose 
adherents considered marijuana holy.

As reggae broadened marijuana's appeal, it began to filter through the 
island's rigid class structure.

Today, even though the drug still has followers, its days as a king crop 
are over.

Still, old habits die hard.

"I'll never quit growing ganja," says Thomas, with a sly grin. "What would 
I smoke?"
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