Paul Chang is founding director of the National Alliance for the Legalisation of Ganja. - CARLINGTON WILMOT/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
I AM now calling on Prime Minister P.J. Patterson to follow through on the democratic process and to implement the recommendations of the Chevannes Commission. In a globalised world, Jamaica's natural competitive advantages are our music and culture, our tourism assets located close to the primary markets of the world, organic agriculture and niche market in agriculture of which organic ganja, in terms of a recreational, medicinal and spiritual herb, will bring tremendous benefits to Jamaica.
Forty per cent of Jamaicans break the law every day. What type of respect is that? There is a disconnect between our laws and the practices of our people and they need to be brought in line. There are countries now which have licensed medicinal cannabis.
(A pharmaceutical company's) projection in 2002 shows something like US$2 billion in sales, naturally from cannabis-based medicines, targeted at just three symptoms and just in the First World markets. Can you imagine the potential that we are sitting down on here in Jamaica in terms of a natural comparative advantage? Our agriculture would be revived, community tourism would mushroom and we would have the people decide which communities want to develop a ganja-based economy in terms of agriculture, in terms of medicine, in terms of jobs and employment.
REGULATION AND TAXATION
How can we expect the communities to cooperate with the law enforcement officers when the communities are in support of ganja and a ganja economy? How can we expect the communities to support the police when so many thousands and thousands of tourists are coming here because they want some good herbs because it goes with our music (and) because that is what they hear about Jamaica?
The idea is not to legalise ganja but to tax it, to regulate it and to control it, to move the hundreds of millions of dollars that go into the black market ... into the tax revenue system, to build schools and hospitals, to provide information to our youth on alcohol and on tobacco and ganja, on cocaine, on heroine, on sex and on everything and to help build up the country so that our communities are no longer fighting with the police force but working with them.
(Ganja is a good medium) in terms of freedom, in terms of respect for the law, in terms of crime and violence, in terms of moving money from the black market into the formal economy, into research and development, into medicines and into our tourism and agricultural markets in a globalised world.
