AT THE 61st annual conference of the People's National Party (PNP) the delegates adopted a resolution to set up a national commission to examine the whole issue of ganja. This is a very sensible move indeed.

I hope the delegates will accept a few words of advice from me, for after all I have been advocating the legalisation from as far back as the 1960s when most of the delegates must have been still in short pants.

The logical thing for Jamaica to do is, of course, simply to legalise ganja full stop; but this would involve a great deal of courage on the part of the Jamaican Government. For we would undoubtedly run into a great deal of flak from our uncle across the waters. As a practical matter we might as well admit that this is out of the question, especially as we have a Government of wimps who haven't even the guts to enforce our sovereign right to hang murderers if public opinion, as it does, so decrees.

K.D. Knight therefore made a sound suggestion that we could make a distinction between the psychedelic plants and the non-psychedelic ones. As far as the non-psychedelic hemp is concerned we have of course a clear run. This is a very useful plant for all kinds of purposes, including the making of rope and the manufacturing of fabric of various kinds. There is nothing to stop us from vigorously pursuing this aspect of the subject. The problem only arises concerning the psychedelic hemp which we call ganja.

Using tact

Without bluntly legalising this kind of hemp, there are many things we can do. Right now, for example, ganja by the bucket is freely available for our American guests in our tourist resorts, simply by reason of the fact that we just tactfully omit the enforcing of the law in those areas. We also tactfully avoid enforcing the law against Rastafarians and we seldom bother to prosecute people who use small quantities of it. Alas, however, our police are still apt to chop down large acres of growing plants. There is nothing to stop our authorities from exercising a good deal of tactful omission in this area too.

What I am really saying is that without irritating Uncle by the direct legalisation of ganja, we could simply indulge in the Nelson Touch by putting a blind eye to our legal telescope.

The real problem to be faced is the problem of cocaine and by co-operating to the full with the American authorities in this matter we could perhaps deflect their attention from what we are up to in the case of ganja.

Jamaican boats and Jamaican aircraft should carefully avoid carrying ganja into the United States and we should strictly forbid all Jamaican subjects from trying to smuggle ganja into the United States. If however ganja is, in practice, freely available to all American or other foreign citizens who come to Jamaica, then it is not really our business if those citizens choose to run the risk of transporting it to their respective countries.

Subtlety

What in fact is needed at the moment concerning ganja is a certain blandness and subtlety on our part. One of these days we might acquire a Government with the guts to take a more direct approach. Having had a very sensible resolution at the 61st annual conference of the PNP it may be that at some future conference the delegates might go one step further and provide us with a Government that has a good deal more courage than the present one.

In the meantime, however, let us get on with the much easier task of cultivating and developing non-psychedelic hemp. Years ago as a child, I remember being driven past a large cultivation of what my father told me was sisal hemp for the making of rope. Surely we can do today what some of us were doing 75 years ago!

There would, too, be at least one rather amusing consequence. We could use our large cultivation of legal hemp to create considerable confusion in the mind of Uncle across the water.

One final word. There is a French phrase (Avoir de la corde-de-pendu dans sa poche). To have luck in the most adverse circumstances is to have hemp in your pocket.

Bad taste

Gordon Robinson recently wrote a brilliant piece taking apart a show called "Sashi 99", though I have no doubt that it will have little effect upon the vulgarians who produce and attend shows of that kind. I was delighted however to see that Vin Lumsden has written a letter to The Gleaner supporting the points made by Mr. Robinson.

I regret to say that we have recently been witnessing the vulgarisation of Jamaica; vulgar behaviour, vulgar so-called music, vulgar lyrics all involving a great deal of vulgar noise. The problem, however, is to write about it all in a way that it is generally understandable. What for example, constitutes vulgarity? Writing that is sexually explicit can certainly be called vulgar. On the other hand some sexually explicit writing, such as D.H. Lawrence's novel ("Lady Chatterley's Lover") is a fine work of art. When it first came out in England many years ago, it was banned. On the other hand, certain sexually explicit lyrics of some of our popular songs can only be described as vulgar without any redeeming virtues.

What it really comes down to is that it is virtually impossible to define either vulgarity or good taste. To those who have good taste no definition is needed. To those who have not, no definition is possible. It all involves, I suppose, the difference between crudity and subtlety. Our problem in Jamaica is that we have a wide variety of so-called popular entertainers, some of whom in their dark glasses and general untidiness, look more like criminals than artistes and probably are. In any case most of them are incapable of writing a literate lyric or composing literate music. The products of this illiteracy, whether sexually explicit or not, are inevitably vulgar and in bad taste. Civilised people like Mr. Robinson and Mr. Lumsden understandably deplore the current vulgarity and bad taste. But I fear that there is little that they and the writer of this column can do about it.

So long as the low level of public taste demands the kind of trash to which we are so often exposed, so long will greedy sponsors and producers keep on churning it out. As usual we shall have to pin our hopes on education and hope that our schools will eventually be able to raise public taste to an educated and sophisticated level. I rather fear, however, that this will take a very long time for our educational system has not even been able to teach the majority of those who attend primary school how to read and write.

(Taken from the Sunday Gleaner.)