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. [continues 371 words]
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. [continues 286 words]
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. [continues 417 words]
(AP) - Taking a deep draw on a pipe that glows with burning marijuana, reggae luminary Bunny Wailer gives a satisfied grin through a haze of aromatic smoke in his concrete yard painted in the red, green, gold and black colors identified with his Rastafarian faith. These days the baritone singer from the legendary Wailers, the group he formed in 1963 with late stars Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, has reason to feel good. There is unprecedented traction building in Jamaica to decriminalize pot, meaning the dreadlocked Wailer, 67, and other adherents of Rastafari - a homegrown spiritual movement that considers the drug divine - may soon be able to smoke without fear of arrest. [continues 416 words]
(AP) - California's Napa and Sonoma valleys have their fancy wine tours, and travelers flock to Scotland to sample the fine single-malt whiskeys. But in Jamaica, farmers are offering a different kind of trip for a different type of connoisseur. Call them "ganja" tours: smoky, mystical - and technically illegal - journeys to some of the Caribbean island's hidden cannabis plantations, where pot tourists can sample such strains as "purple kush" and "pineapple skunk." The tours pass through places like Nine Mile, the tiny hometown of legendary reggae musician and famous pot-lover Bob Marley. Here, in Jamaica's verdant central mountains, dreadlocked men escort curious visitors to a farm where deep-green marijuana plants grow out of the reddish soil. Similar tours are offered just outside the western resort town of Negril, where a marijuana mystique has drawn weed-smoking vacationers for decades. [continues 743 words]
WOONSOCKET -- The City Council unanimously agreed to back a bill pending in the General Assembly that would prohibit the location of any hypodermic needle-exchange van or center within 300 yards of parks, playgrounds, schools and churches. The bill has been referred to the House Subcommittee on Health, Education and Welfare. It was introduced by Rep. Todd R. Brien of Woonsocket in January after local lawmakers learned of a state Health Department-financed needle-exchange van distributing clean needles, syringes, condoms and literature to intravenous drug users in a parking lot next to World War II Veterans Memorial Park. [continues 405 words]
Legislators Want To Keep The State-Sponsored Health Van Out Of City Parks And Away From Schools And Churches. WOONSOCKET -- Two local lawmakers recently introduced a bill in the General Assembly that would ban the distribution of needles and syringes within 300 yards of parks, schools and churches, in response to a state Department of Health-administered needle-exchange program operating two hours a week beside a city park. The legislators, who said they were philosphically opposed to giving needles and other paraphernalia to intravenous drug users, said the needle-exchange van, no matter how well intentioned, will lead to trouble in the 15-acre World War II Veterans Memorial Park near the city's downtown center. [continues 783 words]
