DOI: 10.1080/00086495.2023.2295563

There has been much attention placed on the issue of socio-legal policy on cannabis/ganja/marijuana in the Commonwealth Caribbean during the last ten years. Some important legal and social reform is clearly evident. Yet, when one examines the core objectives of what can only be considered a cannabis movement, the question of progress can be seen as nuanced. Where are we at this moment?

The issue of cannabis/ganja/marijuana had been a controversial one for decades. While outlawed in the statute books due to a global legal framework, the substance, brought to the region from India, had a credible historical usage of thousands of years. More importantly, it had become a sacred herb for Rastafarians, the now regional religious grouping originating in Jamaica. It was this Rastafarian community that had been lobbying for decades for the legal and social reform of cannabis – indeed, its legalisation. A growing number of concerned citizens lent their voices to the call, but there was also vigorous opposition, especially from the churches and the medical fraternity. Yet, increasingly, the socio-legal regime that upheld cannabis laws was being seen as unjust and unacceptable. Individual governments were, however, fearful of acting amidst this entrenched legislative structure and powerful opponents.”

DOI: 10.1080/00086495.2023.2295564

There has been much attention placed on the issue of socio-legal policy on cannabis/ganja/marijuana in the Commonwealth Caribbean during the last ten years. Some important legal and social reform is clearly evident. Yet, when one examines the core objectives of what can only be considered a cannabis movement, the question of progress can be seen as nuanced. Where are we at this moment?

The issue of cannabis/ganja/marijuana had been a controversial one for decades. While outlawed in the statute books due to a global legal framework, the substance, brought to the region from India, had a credible historical usage of thousands of years. More importantly, it had become a sacred herb for Rastafarians, the now regional religious grouping originating in Jamaica. It was this Rastafarian community that had been lobbying for decades for the legal and social reform of cannabis – indeed, its legalisation. A growing number of concerned citizens lent their voices to the call, but there was also vigorous opposition, especially from the churches and the medical fraternity. Yet, increasingly, the socio-legal regime that upheld cannabis laws was being seen as unjust and unacceptable. Individual governments were, however, fearful of acting amidst this entrenched legislative structure and powerful opponents.”

DOI: 10.1080/00086495.2023.2295564

The Rastafari Community in Jamaica was feared, actively suppressed, and distinctly targeted by the government of Jamaica during its formative years. Community leaders were repeatedly harassed, charged, convicted, and often spent many years at a time either in prison or mental hospitals, primarily on the basis of either the anti-ganja provisions of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1948 (for possessing or smoking ganja, or possession of a chillum pipe) or the treason and sedition laws (for declaring His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I to be the King of kings and publicly denouncing King George VI of Great Britain, the coloniser), the latter often landing community leaders in asylum upon conviction. Notorious for the use of ganja, many Rastafari communities and thousands of community members were subject to targeting and criminal prosecution. Throughout the state’s assault on Rastafari existence and ideology, ganja was one of the main legal bases used against the community.

DOI: 10.1080/00086495.2023.2295566

People have been using cannabis for centuries. The term cannabis will be used interchangeably with ganja, ‘herb’, and marijuana in this study. The term herb is especially important here because it is a positive polemical representation of cannabis as a naturally growing plant, which should never be illegal, and challenges and removes the hegemonic and derogatory depiction of cannabis as ‘weed’.

The contextual background for this study is that marijuana use has been illegal internationally for much of the last century. Herb possession is still largely illegal in many countries including those in which it has been decriminalised. Resistance is pervasive in such contexts because some people continue to use herb despite possible legal sanctions. This situation will be interrogated by exploring how some people use marijuana to construct a social identity and engage the social world. The objective of this preliminary study is to understand how some people in coercive socio-legal contexts use cannabis to define themselves. The organisation of this article starts with a discussion of social identity then a brief discussion of ganja use. Next, the method of the study is outlined, followed by the results, discussion, and conclusion sections.”

DOI: 10.1080/00086495.2023.2295567

In 2022, Jamaica celebrated its annual National Heroes’ Day on Monday, 17 October. It was on that day that the incumbent government honoured Leonard Percival Howell by posthumously awarding him the nation’s Order of Distinction (officer rank) for his role in the founding of the Rastafari movement. Representing the government was the Honourable Olivia Grange, minister of culture, gender, entertainment, and sport, accompanied by Prince Ermias Sahle Selassie, grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie I and chairman of the Crown Council of Ethiopia. Receiving the award on behalf of his late father was his youngest son, William “Bill” Howell. Many Jamaicans felt the award was long overdue and should have been of higher order.

DOI: 10.1080/00086495.2023.2295568

St Vincent and the Grenadines is a very small country (155 square miles), located in the Eastern Caribbean. It consists of mainland St Vincent and thirty-two Grenadines islands, most of which are uninhabited. It stretches southward towards Grenada; to its north, about twenty miles away, is St Lucia; and to the west is Barbados, about one hundred miles off. The multi-island state was a colony of England from 1763 until 27 October 1979 when it attained political independence. The country is a member of the Commonwealth, with the United Kingdom monarch as its head of state. The mainland by itself is very mountainous, with short running streams which become larger after heavy rains. The country has no navigable rivers. Its highest peak is La Soufriere, which erupted in the years 1812, 1902, 1979, and recently in 2021, causing much damage to buildings and dislocation of some of the local population. The volcanic ash, which also impacted other regional territories, particularly Barbados and St Lucia, is said to have enhanced the fertility of their soil, not to mention that of St Vincent and the Grenadines itself. This fertile soil, coupled with the experience of Vincentian traditional cultivators, the resilience of our people, and the political leadership of Prime Minister the Honourable Ralph Gonsalves has placed us in a remarkable position in the cannabis world, and has helped to make us an attractive candidate for the establishment of a modern medical cannabis industry. Likewise, the name St Vincent and the Grenadines will always occupy a special place in the annals of cannabis history because of the circumstances leading to and fallout from “Operation Weedeater”.

DOI: 10.1080/00086495.2023.2295569

Among other sources, the 2018 “Report of the CARICOM Regional Commission on Marijuana” provides a succinct but telling history on how cannabis came to be classified as a schedule I drug and therefore became illegal in Caribbean Community (CARICOM) territories. Jamaica, as the single largest producer nation, and the largest exporter among Caribbean nations, had been under scrutiny and unrelenting pressure for years from its developed-country trading partners (the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Canada), and organisations such as the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), an arm of the United Nations (UN). Small wonder then, that when the Parliament of Jamaica passed the Dangerous Drug (Amendment) Act 2015 decriminalising ganja, the whole world took notice. On 20 April 2015, when the act was signed into law, Jamaica was only the third country in the world after Argentina to have decriminalised cannabis; previously, Uruguay began creating a legal medical marijuana industry in 2013. Jamaica decriminalised ganja before Canada and many US states that have subsequently done so, and, of course, was the first in the Caribbean.

DOI: 10.1080/00086495.2023.2295570

Reggae has been a sonic space in which the connection between ‘herb’ and music is perhaps best appreciated. This music is a convenient and also primary source of reference that emerges at the crucial moment of Rastafari social development and, in no small way, has helped to shape the Jamaican society ever since its introduction. In a general way, this music highlights that culturally, Jamaicans shows preference for the Hindu term ganja as a standard name. The music has thus been able to popularise this term especially among most Reggae ‘cannaisseurs’ internationally. ‘Herb’ and ‘weed’ are, to a lesser extent, common terms that can be found in cannabis-related songs today. Historically, ‘collie’ – a popular term for ganja in song in the early days – has been replaced by more updated terms such as weed, ‘grades’, and ‘sess’. The music data suggest that Jamaican musicians have led this ganja advocacy, but European and Trinidadian contributions on the subject have also made their way into international reggae renown. A number of artistes have multiple songs on the subject matter. One can say that reggae, from its genesis, has been a space to vanguard the ganja cause. As early as 1978, at the first Reggae Sunsplash music festival, this Rastafari/reggae/ganja triune was inaugurated. Around that time, Jacob Miller, lead singer of Inner Circle, was the subject of local headlines following his civil disobedience of openly smoking before law enforcement, thus angering police who felt obliged to do nothing. That Reggae Sunsplash concept was perhaps the first official ganja-sanctioned event in Jamaica, where for years law enforcement turned a blind eye to use and trade of the herb as the concert was a product deemed good for the local tourist market. Peter Tosh, as one of the key figures of Rastafari defiance, had also helped to pioneer the representation of reggae production and performance as one of a ganja facilitation and aesthetic. Though Tosh had been one of the most significant ganja advocates to emerge from with the ranks of Rastafari reggae artistry, he was certainly not the first, though he may be considered the definitive exemplar. Over the first fifty years in reggae music’s history, there has been several hundred songs addressing the subject of ganja described by various names with general preference for the local terms ganja or herb.

DOI: 10.1080/00086495.2023.2295571

The war on drugs perpetrated by the US has been so loud that it has obliterated the sounds that make sense for people who have found social, medical, professional, economic, or spiritual benefits from marijuana for centuries. The term ‘war on drugs’ simply refers to the actions taken to prohibit drug use and trade. However, upon doing much research and analysis of different works on various points of view regarding drugs, one may identify a seemingly high level of hypocrisy, especially within states and their apparatuses. This article explores Jamaica’s role in a global ganjapreneurship space, with Rastafari and reggae at the centre. Specifically, this article seeks to situate the ganja activism of Peter Tosh and its manifestation in an informal ganjapreneurship culture to the emergence of an economy around its consumption in such contexts as reggae/hemp festivals. By placing the hypocrisy of the war on drugs into perspective, this article seeks to place undocumented components of the entrepreneurial elements of marijuana in Jamaica on a world stage that already acknowledges Jamaica for Rasta, reggae, and ganja.

DOI: 10.1080/00086495.2023.2295572

A useful place to start the journey in reviewing a regulated Jamaican cannabis industry is to look at the role the United Nations (UN) played in shaping or defining the legal and regulatory framework for the plant around the globe, including Jamaica. The UN introduced the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 (SCND), amended by the 1972 protocol; the Convention of Psychotropic Substances of 1971; and the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988. These are predated by the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), mandated to decide on the scope of controlled substances elaborated under those three international drug control conventions as early as 1946. It has been argued that these international drug control conventions, which Jamaica has ratified, have become the legislative and regulatory basis for the prohibition and criminalisation of the cultivation, use, and trade of cannabis or ganja.

DOI: 10.1080/00086495.2023.2295573

My journey in this industry began in 2016. Like many others, my interest was sparked by the decriminalisation and legalisation of cannabis in Jamaica in 2015. Unlike others, however, my initial interest was driven from a very different place than many of my global counterparts. As a native of Trinidad and Tobago, I saw how the ‘national instrument’ – steelpan – became revered the world over, and individuals and companies capitalised on its commercial benefits, while the country and its population failed to effectively pursue and capitalise on its own commercial opportunities and sat outside of much of the financial benefits. I always felt this was a travesty for the country and region, and for some reason, it struck me as I read articles and watched news coverage of a town hall meeting on 17 June 2015 at St Luke’s Anglican Church in Kingston on the legalisation of cannabis in Jamaica, that the missed opportunity seen in Trinidad and Tobago with steelpan would be repeated in Jamaica with cannabis. And so, again, with zero, direct experience or involvement with cannabis, the idea came to me that I should do something. It is said when you see certain things, you cannot un-see them, and that is how moved I felt in considering the possibility of Jamaica not truly seizing the vast opportunity represented by a legal cannabis industry. As I read and learned more about cannabis and recognised the tremendous benefits that many found it could provide for holistic healing, wealth generation, and commerce, it struck me that it would be a great travesty if Jamaica somehow missed out on the opportunity to fully participate in the legal cannabis industry, given its long association with cannabis and global recognition of that association through its music and cultural icons.