Letters

The Editor, Sir:

While the United States continues its pressure on Jamaica to destroy the marijuana (ganja) industry here, the industry is flourishing in that country.

During the 1970s, '80s, and to a lesser extent, the '90s, several rural communities relied heavily on the growing and selling of ganja for their development. These communities have become centres of poverty and desolateness since the destruction of the ganja trade. At the same time as it is pressuring us to destroy our trade, the US is gradually moving towards legalising the growing, sale and use of ganja in their country.

There are now huge vineyards of ganja in an area in California known as the Emerald Triangle. This area has become the marijuana capital of the western Hemisphere. There are acres of green houses and vineyards all containing various grades of ganja plants. A law has been passed in California that allows a doctor to recommend (not prescribe) for a patient, the use of ganja.

With this recommendation the patient is free to cultivate, possess and use ganja for personal use. The law also provides for the existence of producers and dispensaries of ganja. The large investors who own these huge ganja plantations justify the sizes of these farms by registering them as collectives owned by up to 2,000 persons who have received recommendations from doctors to use ganja.

The doctors who issue the recommendations are rich, the owners of the collectives are rich, and the Government is now taking aim at the industry with a view to getting its share in taxes. The full and complete legalisation of ganja will be on the ballot in California for the congressional election in November. The ganja industry in California is generating between US$12 billion and US $18 billion per year, and the Government has projected that with legalisation it will collect about US$1.2 billion annually in taxes.

Waste of the police's time

I have never smoked ganja and have no plans to start smoking it even if it is made legal. However, I cannot help but remark that I find it a waste of the police's time and that of the court when the police arrest, process and take young men to court for a spliff only to hear the court fining them $100 or 30 days in jail. Maybe we need to find a way to save the costs of these arrests.

It might be that the time has come for us to allow for the granting of licences for ganja-smoking houses. These houses should be established under strict guidelines and should allow for those who want to smoke ganja to visit these houses and smoke themselves into another world.

It is full time that we revisit the weed and see if there is any way we can get some wisdom from it.

I am, etc.,

LINTON P. GORDON

lpgordon@cwjamaica.com

Ocho Rios,St Ann