Marijuana Growers Association Launched in Jamaica

In his article “Pot Growers Association Launched in Jamaica,” David McFadden writes that a group of influential Jamaicans gathered last Saturday to launch an association of future Marijuana cultivators as momentum builds toward loosening laws prohibiting pot on the Caribbean island.

Some 300 people, including a few medical Marijuana entrepreneurs from Canada and the U.S. state of Colorado, assembled at a conference center in downtown Kingston to officially launch the Ganja Future Growers and Producers Association. Among other things, the group will lobby for creation of a regulated cannabis industry on the tropical island that is nearly as famous for its pot as it is for its scenic beaches and unique culture.

The moderator of the Saturday event was Kingston Mayor Angela Brown-Burke, who is also a senator and a vice president of the ruling People’s National Party. Her husband, Paul Burke, is one of the leaders of the new association and also an influential PNP figure. Groups that spoke in support of the venture included the country’s scientific research council, agricultural society and the Jamaican campus of the University of the West Indies.

“Jamaica has a prime opportunity to enter and revolutionize an industry that could have an enormous kickback on our growth and development potential,” said Rupert Lewis, a politics professor who spoke on behalf of the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies.

Marijuana has been pervasive but outlawed on the island for a century. But as the pot legalization movement gains unprecedented traction across the globe, most notably in the South American nation of Uruguay and the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington, there’s a growing push to lift restrictions in Jamaica to give the island’s long struggling economy a big boost.