May 5
| 1494 | Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica, which he names Santa Gloria.
Available online 16 April 2016
Short Report
Farming Medical Ganja in JamaicaAbstractBackground
In
the spring of 2015 the Jamaican parliament passed the Dangerous Drugs
(Amendment) Act with several significant changes to the existing
legislation and is intended to “provide for the modification of
penalties or possession of ganja in specified small quantities and the
smoking of ganja in specified circumstances, and for a scheme of
licences, permits and other authorisations for medical, therapeutic or
scientific purposes”.
Methods
This
study sought to examine how farmers currently growing illegally will
react to the change in drug policy and how this will affect the yield,
quality and potency of ganja produced in Jamaica. The study gathered the
opinions of ganja farmers about their experience, production methods,
use of fertilisers and pesticides, markets and market price, and their
views of, response to and level of engagement with the new scheme.
Results
The study found that there is little knowledge, understanding or engagement with the new scheme by farmers.
Conclusion
Most
small farmers had no interest in the new system and will likely
continue to grow and sell seeded mixed strain illegally and there will
be no difference in the yield, quality and potency of their ganja. Other
farmers anticipate applying for a licence for the new system and
switching to seedless single strain ganja with an increased yield,
quality and potency.
Given the short time-span
before the new system is introduced the farmers desperately need
information and advice to help prepare for the new market requirements
in terms of the production of organic single-strain seedless ganja and a
new post-harvest supply chain including testing, certification,
packaging, logistics and distribution.
Keywords
© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
|
|
| 1821 | Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile on the island of St. Helena. | |
| 1912 | Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda begins publishing. | |
| 1916 | U.S. Marines invade the Dominican Republic. | |
| 1917 | Eugene Jacques Bullard becomes the first African-American aviator when he earns a flying certificate with the French Air Service. | |
| 1935 | American Jesse Owens sets the long jump record. | |
| 1945 | Holland and Denmark are liberated from Nazi control. | |
| 1961 | Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space. | |
| 1969 | Pulitzer Prize awarded to Norman Mailer for his ‘nonfiction novel’ Armies of the Night, an account of the 1967 anti-Vietnam War march on the Pentagon. | |
| 1987 | Congress opens Iran-Contra hearings. | |
| 2000 | The Sun, Earth, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn align – Earth’s moon is also almost in this alignment – leading to Doomsday predictions of massive natural disasters, although such a ‘grand confluence’ occurs about once in every century. | |
| Born on May 5 | ||
| 1813 | Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher. | |
| 1818 | Karl Marx, German philosopher (The Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital). http://monthlyreview.org/2014/06/01/marx-on-gender-and-the-family-a-summary/ |
|
| 1830 | John B. Stetson, American hat maker. | |
