ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of Jamaica’s historical policy approach to ganja (cannabis) which emerged from the society’s West African and Indian cultural influences. The chapter also discusses the impact of the earliest social agitators for change of Jamaica’s cannabis policy as well as early attempts at reform. The discourse then moves into more recent occurrences that led to Jamaica’s Dangerous Drug (Amendment) Act 2015 and the decriminalization of ganja in the island state.
The chapter looks forward to the role that a small island state such as Jamaica can play in developing an alternative sustainable development framework that is built on the cannabis crop presently deemed as illicit in the international setting. Jamaica’s approach to cannabis can be viewed as a change to a more inclusive perspective involving cultural and traditional cultivators and users, which is intended to bring about reform that is sustainably based on the legal market and by-products from cannabis. It can be stated that Jamaica has also attempted to include a cultural regulation to cannabis through its recognition of rights of the Rastafarian community to use cannabis (viewed by the Rastafarian movement as the “healing of the nation”) for sacramental purposes.
