Jamaica is running out of marijuana

Heavy rains followed by prolonged drought, increased local consumption and a drop in the number of farmers growing marijuana combine to create shortages in the region. famous jamaican drug market, mostly illegal. Experts say this is the worst time in this market they can remember.

“It’s a cultural disgrace,” said Triston Thompson, an executive at Tacaya, a consultant to the nascent regulated cannabis industry.

Jamaica, a country foreigners associate with marijuana, reggae, and Rastafarians, authorized the sale of marijuana for medical use and small amounts for recreational use in 2015.

People caught with more than 56 grams of cannabis must pay a small fine. They are not arrested and have no criminal record. Everyone is also allowed to cultivate no more than five floors and Rastafarians can smoke ganja for sacramental purposes.

There is no strict enforcement of the laws and many tourists and Jamaicans continue to buy marijuana on the streets, where it is increasingly rare and expensive.

Heavy rains of last year’s hurricane season were followed by severe drought, causing tens of thousands of dollars in losses, according to farmers who grow marijuana outside the legal system.

“They erased everything,” said Daneyle Bozra, who grows marijuana in southwest Jamaica in an old town called Accompong. founded by runaway slaves from the 18th century.

The situation has been made worse by COVID-19. Curfews from six in the afternoon prevented peasants maintain your crops at night, as is customary, according to 29-year-old Kernrick Wallace, who owns nearly one hectare of land in Accompong, where he grows marijuana with the help of 20 people.

He stressed that there are no roads and that farmers have to walk to their land. Then they must look for water in wells and springs.

Wallace believes he lost more than $ 18,000 in recent months and has only been able to push 135 kilos, compared to 700 to 800 to which he is used.

Campaigners say the pandemic, combined with the lifting of many restrictions on marijuana, has led to an increase in local consumption, which has contributed to shortages, even as the pandemic has slowed the arrival of foreign tourists drawn to the ganja.

“Last year was the worst. We have never lost so much,” said Thompson. “Sometimes it’s funny that cannabis is scarce in Jamaica.”

Tourists are taking note and comments abound on social media difficulty obtaining marijuana on the island.

Pat Burke, executive director of the Ganja Farmers and Growers Association, said in a phone interview that people are no longer afraid of going to jail because the government allows possession of small amounts of marijuana. He added that the stigma associated with ganja is decreasing and more people have recognized its medicinal and therapeutic value during the pandemic.

Burke noted that some farmers have stopped growing marijuana, frustrated that they cannot meet the demands of the legal market and that the police keep destroying what he described as “good fields of ganja”.

The Cannabis Regulatory Authority (which authorized 29 cultivation operations and issued 73 licenses for drug transport, sale, processing and other activities) said there was no shortage of marijuana on the regulated market. Farmers and activists, meanwhile, say marijuana sold in legal dispensaries is out of reach for most people because costs five or ten times more than the one you buy on the street.

AP Agency.

GML