Pubdate: Sun, 12 Aug 2012
Source: Jamaica Gleaner, The (Jamaica)
Copyright: 2012 The Gleaner Company Limited
Contact: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/feedback.html
Website: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/493
Author: Davey Haughton
Note: Davey Haughton is president of the United Student Movement of NCU.

LEGALISE IT!

If there was anywhere on Earth where it was legal to blaze the 
chalice, one would think that that place would be Jamaica, 
popularised by our own legendary ambassadors such as Bob Marley (in 
singles such as Kaya), Peter Tosh (Legalise It), Yellow Man 
(Sensemilla), Rita Marley (One Draw, more popularly known as I Wanna 
Get High) and Buju Banton (Driva).

After the most recent recommendations to decriminalise weed, made by 
national commissions set up in the late 1990s by the government, 
namely that of former prime ministers P.J. Patterson and, more 
recently, Bruce Golding, to study the phenomenon of this herb, it 
would appear that support is growing in Parliament. Justice Minister 
Mark Golding and Opposition Senator Tom Tavares-Finson have shown their cards.

These individuals, despite international constraints, are now echoing 
a nearly century-old cry of our people, whose cultural custom of 
using the herb widely as medicine, intoxicant, and in religious 
sacraments, has been criminalised.

There is no doubt that this sweet 'sensemilla' has caused a few 
medical and social problems. Notwithstanding this, these problems 
stem from the unregulated use and simultaneous criminalisation of its 
use, combined with an English Common Law foreign to our cultural norms.

As said by columnist Daniel Thwaites, combined with the words of Bob 
Marley, "Wi tiad fi lick weed inna bush and wi tiad fi lick pipe inna 
gully" ... so "excuse me while I light my spliff / good God, I gotta 
take a lift / From reality I just can't drift / That's why I am 
staying with this riff."

This has been the passive resistance and boldness of a defiant 
society since the criminalisation of ganja in 1913, which was highly 
influenced by Jamaica's white ruling elitist and Judaeo-Christian 
groups. Since then, prohibition of the 'high grade' has proven 
counterproductive. This has been compounded by Jamaica becoming a 
signatory to international anti-marijuana treaties and 
drug/narcotic-control conventions with the United Nations, leading to 
thousands of Jamaicans being beleaguered, imprisoned and even murdered.

robbed of a living

Needless to say, the working-class people who cultivate ganja have 
been robbed of their only means of earning a living. I find it 
trifling and a waste of the legal system's resources when the police 
apprehend, process, and hold a person in custody for a court hearing 
over a spliff, only to hear the court fining $100 or sentencing to 30 
days in jail.

Jamaica's climate, culture, and topography are ideal for ganja 
cultivation. The commissions set up as early as the 1970s to study 
ganja and make policy recommendations proved this evident and all 
recommended ganja's regulated legalisation. It is no coincidence that 
all the recommendations of these committees correspond, the most 
recent of which, in a commission chaired by Professor Barry 
Chevannes, further advised to end criminal sanctions for adults who 
use the substance in small quantities for private and personal use, 
and as a sacrament in religious rites.

The report argued that the current laws not only put an unbearable 
strain on the relationship between the police and communities, but 
also result in contempt towards the justice system, instead of 
fighting crack/cocaine trafficking.

It is no surprise that after the Jamaican Government expressed public 
endorsement of the commission's recommendations, like all other 
commissions before it, the same Government ended up ignoring the 
commission's recommendations consequent to the US Embassy's 
disapproving response as communicated by the Embassy's spokesman 
Michael Koplovsky: "The US opposes decriminalisation of marijuana use 
.. . The US government will evaluate if such proposals violate 
Jamaica's commitments to the 1988 United Nations anti-drug treaty."

It is noteworthy to say here that while Jamaica is cognisant of the 
obvious possibility of violating international treaties on drug 
control, it is safe to say that the Government fears being slapped 
with prejudicial sanctions should it attempt decriminalisation. 
Sanctions such as the withdrawal of most United States foreign 
assistance, to opposition to loans sought from cosmopolitan 
development banks and multilateral lending agencies. This, however, 
does not justify stifling our country's growth and oppressing our 
people for the magisterial cause of the UN or the US.

hypocritical paradox

While our country suffers as a result of the United States pressure, 
the industry is booming in that country. In fact, the largest region 
in the US that produces cannabis for legal use is in California 
(Emerald Triangle) and might now be considered the ganja capital of 
the Western Hemisphere. Outdoing Jamaica in length and economic 
robustness, which is solely dependent upon the production of ganja, 
the Emerald Triangle is 10,260 square miles (26,600 km); two times 
the size of Jamaica, which is 4,244 square miles (10,991 km), and 
makes a profit of US$1 billion a year from cultivating the plant.

California ganja laws provide for the existence of producers and the 
regulation of dispensaries of ganja, medical use, transportation, 
possession, cultivation, and even driving under the influence of marijuana.

Yet the US government and its Food and Drug Administration blocked 
approval for using the Jamaica-based Asmasol in America for the 
treatment of cough, cold and bronchial asthma, which is one of the 
medicines resulting from the Canasol Cannabis Extract Research 
endorsed by the Jamaican Government.

I say to the Jamaican Government, wake up and smell the 'high grade', 
for it just might clear your vision so you may see modern-day 
imperialism for what it is. It is full time that our political 
leaders stop acting like prepubescent wussies and legalise it.

take us 'higher'

It would certainly 'lift the spirits', and in doing so, the 
Government might even adopt the California ganja laws as a sample and 
tell the US we are following in its footsteps. Who knows? 
Legalisation might just serve as a stimulus package to our economy.

Decriminalisation, put in perspective, excludes use by minors or by 
anyone in public places such as parks, schools, courthouses, etc. My 
opinion is that it should be regulated like the use of alcoholic 
beverages and cigars, but it must be legalised for medicinal use and 
cultural rituals.

For the record, I have never blazed sensemilla, nor do I intend to 
start, even if it were made legal. I only take my one tablespoon of 
doctor-prescribed Asmasol for my occasional respiratory condition, 
which does wonders. The use of ganja as an intoxicant is an 
inadvisable lifestyle choice for me.

I believe, however, that it should be a choice for all adults to 
make, and not that of the Government. It is not the Government's 
prerogative to legislate certain discretionary decisions that a man 
should be making for himself and his good.

Simply put, a man should have the choice to 'blaze the chalice' in 
celebration of our athletes' superior speed at the Olympics, or do so 
in his own backyard in Jamaica 50 merriment.

For these reasons I cannot help but remark on almost a century of 
bigoted and stifling attempts by our domestic laws and perverse 
international legislation which not only suppress us as a people but 
convict our culture and our customs of treason.

I've got news for you, our political imperialists, local and 
international: Babylon "can fool some people sometimes / But you 
can't fool all the people all the time".

The use of ganja will never stop and your attempt to eliminate it 
will only make it more famed, so "just legalise it and don't 
criticise it" and we the people will advertise it!
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom