Trudy Simpson, Staff Reporter
A Rastafarian member of the audience advocates for the right to grow small amounts of ganja for medicinal use during The Gleaner's Editors Forum on the Ganja Debate. - PHOTOD BY CARLINGTON WILMOT/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
THE GOVERNMENT was on Wednesday chided for its delay in implementing recommendations from the Ganja Commission even as more persons called for decriminalisation of the drug as a means of boosting the country's flagging economy.
"Rather than taking strong political action, politicians have been meandering, trying to please the local people and trying to please foreign masters," said attorney-at-law and rastafarian, Miguel Lorne during a Gleaner Editors' Forum on the 'Ganja Debate' Wednesday night at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, New Kingston.
Lorne was joined by persons from several sectors and members of the public, who renewed calls for the implementation of the recommendations of the National Ganja Commission, including the decriminalisation of ganja or cannabis for personal, private use in small amounts by adults.
'HYPOCRISY'
Participants cited marijuana's medicinal and economic benefits as reasons for decriminalisation. They also referred to what they termed the 'hypocrisy' of making ganja illegal when 40 per cent of Jamaicans use the drug. They noted also that other more harmful substances have been made legal.
"Ganja is not a controversial issue but a political issue," argued Professor Federick Hickling, head of the section of psychiatry at the University Hospital of the West Indies. "...What we do know is that this is illegal and there are much more serious substances ... It is a contradiction where you have two substances (alcohol and tobacco) which are much more harmful and cannabis is illegal," he said during the forum.
Panellists, among them Paul Chang, a founding director of the National Alliance for the Legalisation of Ganja, and audience members, also lamented that Jamaica was losing out on potential resources to be gained from ganja.
He pointed out that other countries have been benefiting from ganja-derived products by decriminalising the use of the drug.
Mr. Chang added that ganja can be used to boost agriculture, employment and community tourism.
'CURRENT LAWS CAUSING CONFUSION'
"The idea is not to only legalise ganja but to tax it, regulate it and control it. To move the hundreds of billions of dollars that go into the black market ... to the tax revenue system to build schools and hospitals ... to help build up the country," Mr. Chang said.
Mr. Lorne said the current ganja laws were causing confusion locally and were hampering the efforts of the police to fight more serious crimes.
"A man is not going to come today and give you information about gun crimes and you going to come tomorrow and drape him up (over a ganja spliff) and haul him before the court," Mr. Lorne said to loud applause.
