PREFACE

For well over a hundred years, ganja has become the subject of considerable debate and investigation, beginning with the much celebrated India Hemp Commission of 1894, which was followed by no fewer than ten landmark Commissions and studies. Notable among these was the Commission of scientists and experts set up by Mayor La Guardia of New York in 1938, which took six years to complete its Report. Despite the favourable reviews of both these Commissions, yet another study was commissioned by the United States National Institute of Mental Health, subsequently renamed the National Institute of Health, on the long term effects of cannabis use. Led by Dr Vera Rubin of the Research Institute for the Study of Man and Professor Lambros Comitas of Columbia University, the study assembled a panel of United States and Jamaican scientists from the University of the West Indies, and carried out their extensive study in Jamaica from in 1970 and 1971. This study did not find any negative effect that might be attributable to chronic ganja use, but although it provided a basis for some States in the United States to ameliorate their positions, the debate has not only continued but intensified, in the wake of considerable increase worldwide in the smoking of cannabis, especially in the North Atlantic countries.

Then in 1977 the Jamaican Government set up a Joint Select Committee "to consider the criminality, legislation, uses and abuses and possible medicinal properties of ganja and to make appropriate recommendations." The Committee while rejecting legalisation, on account of Jamaica's obligation to the 1961 Convention, unanimously concluded that "[t]here was however a substantial case for decriminalizing the personal use of ganja." It recommended specific amelioration of the law, and that there should be "no punishment prescribed for the personal use of ganja up to a quantity of 2 ozs. by persons on private premises." It further recommended that ganja be lawfully prescribed for medicinal use.

The fact that these recommendations have been shelved, and that the work of reputable scientists have been ignored would lead the sceptic to suggest that that could well be the fate of the present Commission. Contributing in no mean way to the scepticism is the factual consideration that the original proscription against ganja was never based on medical evidence, but now medical evidence is being sought to justify its continued ban. In recommending decriminalisation for personal use, we do not share the pessimism.

After nine months of consultation and reflection, visits to every parish and hearings amounting to 3776 pages of transcriptions, the Commission is convinced that its recommendations will not go the way of those of all previous commissions and studies, notwithstanding the difficulties that will confront the Government due to Jamaica's ratification of UN Conventions that seek to prohibit cannabis, except for research and medical-scientific purposes. The reason for the Commission's sanguineness is what it has uncovered as an overwhelming national and growing international consensus that cannabis should be decriminalised, or at least differentiated from other banned substances.

Nationally, the consensus reaches across the lines that once divided us historically, and that continue to divide us socially, to wit party, class and religion, where none seemed to have existed before, even at the time of Joint Select Committee twenty-five years ago.

Internationally, hardly a week goes by without some intimation of changing attitudes to cannabis. In many States of the United States of America the use of cannabis for medical purposes has been declared legal. Earlier this year Health Canada, Canada's Ministry of Health, issued regulations to create a government-regulated system for using cannabis for medical purposes, the first country to do so. This action has been quickly sanctioned by Parliament which now makes cannabis legal in Canada for terminally ill patients and those suffering certain painful debilities. In June 2001 the British press reports on the launch of a pilot scheme in London in which cannabis offenders are simply warned and sent on their way, instead of being cautioned, arrested, charged and tried. A British Parliamentary Committee is soon to review the matter. British practice lags far behind those of the Dutch and of a growing number of other European countries which have simply decriminalised the personal use of small quantities of cannabis. Portugal, according to press reports, has taken the very bold step of decriminalising the use of all banned substances. An international momentum is clearly underway.

The Report seeks to capture the extent of this national consensus. This is set out in Chapter 3, the main body of the report, but not before a discussion of the methodology (Chapter 1) by which we have undertaken our work and arrived at our conclusions, and a review of the most up-to-date scientific reports (Chapter 2). Having presented this, the Report turns to consider the legal and political implications of our general recommendation, in Chapter 4. One critical issue raised by many experts and witnesses is the attitude of the United States, and this too is taken into account in the context of discussion on our international treaty obligations. The Report concludes with a summary of the recommendations, in Chapter 5, which is followed by the Appendices.