Course Name: Caribbean Civilization

Student ID: 320074454

Name: Jadon Cumberbatch

Assignment: Jamaicans Are Worried Foreigners Will Take Over the Ganja Market
 In Jamaica, based on an anthropological study of cannabis use in the region, it
is estimated that 60-70 percent of Jamaicans use Ganja also known as
Cannabis regularly it is certain that Jamaica is one of the countries where the use of
cannabis has existed for many generations and occurs very frequently. This was the very
reason why a team of American researchers travelled to Jamaica in the 1970s to carry out a
prolonged and extensive study on the effects of chronic (long-term) cannabis use. As upon
until the 24th of February 2015, Jamaican lawmakers passed an act to decriminalise
small amounts of marijuana and establish a licensing agency to regulate a lawful
medical cannabis industry on the island. In which the law paves the way for a
licensing authority to be set up to deal with regulations on cultivation and
distribution of marijuana for medical, scientific and therapeutic purposes. As
beneficial and profitable this may sound for Jamaica’s economy, Jamaicans say the
cultural ownership they feel towards cannabis is getting ignored by foreign investors
looking to make money in the ganja mecca, since Jamaica has spent years prosecuting
illegal marijuana growers, but as it moves to legalize parts of the industry, small farmers
worry they will be left behind.
But besides the point of local farmers worried about being left out, another important
fact to take into consideration is the major role ganja played in Jamaica’s history, as it’s
considered a “holy herb” It is assumed that marijuana came to Jamaica with the Indians.
This also explains why in Jamaica a Hindi word is used for marijuana, namely ganja.
Through the Indians ganja spread to the lower classes of society, in fact, the black section of
the population. Ganja is currently a widely used substance in the countryside and in the poor
districts of the large towns. To Rastafarians, the followers of the religious black
consciousness movement Rastafari, the reason for using ganja is more profound. They look
upon ganja as a holy plant, which enables them to deepen their faith. Hence the reason why
there’s a hint of disappointment in Courtney Betty’s voice when he talks about the present
state of Jamaica’s legal medicinal cannabis regime. As he “’”” I don’t think some of the
companies coming in to do business here want to understand the social realities of Jamaica,
or the real history of ganja in my country,” he said from his home in the country’s capital,
Kingston. “I don’t think it is out of ignorance; I think this is just the way Western companies
conduct business abroad.” Since going legal in 2015, Jamaica has dispensed almost 30
licences to cultivate and sell cannabis, according to Cindy Lightbourne, director of the
Jamaican Cannabis Licensing Agency (CLA). Approximately 170 applications have been
conditionally approved, with hundreds more in the queue. Most of those licences, have a
significant amount of foreign investment attached to them, although the CLA does not
divulge specifics of which entities hold licences or are waiting to get them.

Even a wealthy local businessman Balram Vaswani who runs Kaya, a publicly listed
cannabis company said, “It is not easy to get a licence.” As the barriers to entry are big,
because you need money to set up your security systems and meet the standards of the
licensing authority. Those barriers to entry are even higher when one considers the difficulty
locals have in accessing capital for anything cannabis related. There is also a big problem in
the Banking sector for farmers wanting to transition from the illegal to the legal market, or
wanting to just get into cannabis, because local Jamaican banks have ties to the U.S. and are
not willing to take cannabis clients.
To conclude, Farmers who wish to enter the legal industry of whom have been in the ganja
cultivation business for generations are left with little choice but to partner up with cash-rich
foreigners or wealthy locals or be relegated to the side-lines of Jamaica’s fast-growing
medical marijuana sector.

References

 Boekhout van Solinge, Tim (1996), Ganja in Jamaica

http://www.cedro-uva.org/lib/boekhout.ganja.en.html

 Azam Ahmad October 1st, 2016, Jamaica, Long Opposed to Marijuana, Now
Wants to Cash in on It
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/world/americas/jamaica-marijuana.html

 Jamaica Decriminalizes Marijuana 2015

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/25/jamaica-decriminalises-marijuana