POT PANEL MAY HELP TURN OVER A NEW LEAF

Jamaica: Commission Is Set To Present Its Final Recommendations To
Parliament On Whether To Decriminalize Ganja

KINGSTON, Jamaica--Imagine a lush, tropical land just a few hundred miles
off the U.S. coast where marijuana, though illegal, is a cultural icon
worshiped by thousands and so plentiful it goes for just $26 a pound.

Now, imagine this place when it's legal.

That's precisely what Jamaica's government-appointed National Commission on
Ganja has been doing for the last nine months.

Led by the dean of social sciences at Kingston's University of the West
Indies, the seven-member commission has heard from more than 150 people and
institutions ranging from the Medical Assn. of Jamaica to the Rastafarian
Centralization Organization, and it has sounded out more than a dozen
communities nationwide.

This month, the official body will present its final recommendations on
whether marijuana should be decriminalized here.

An interim report that Commission Chairman Barry Chevannes presented to
Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson in May gave no clear indication
whether the commission will endorse decriminalization, a recommendation
that would then be put to Parliament for a vote.

"It may be deduced so far that most persons and organizations would support
the decriminalization of the use of ganja for private purposes and in
private spaces," the preliminary report said. "However, there are those who
would prefer to maintain the status quo regarding the criminal status of
ganja in Jamaica."

The Bush administration isn't likely to welcome decriminalization. Even
under then-President Clinton, the State Department and the Drug Enforcement
Administration consistently expressed concern over Jamaica's large
marijuana crop and its exports to U.S. markets.

Chevannes said the commission is seriously considering the "external
consequences" of its recommendation. Beyond a potential U.S. condemnation,
they include a possible snowball effect on other marijuana-producing
Caribbean islands that have considered decriminalizing the plant in the
past. And K.D. Knight, Jamaica's national security minister, said this week
that he opposes decriminalization.

The commission chairman cited a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that
struck a blow to medical use of marijuana in America as a sign of the times
in Jamaica's powerful neighbor to the north.

"The U.S., in the kind of mood it is in today, well, this matter will be
one for the commission to weigh," Chevannes said.

Privately, however, U.S. and Jamaican law enforcement officials say the
island's marijuana trade has been eclipsed by a more lucrative role as a
transshipment point for Colombian cocaine bound for the United States--a
multibillion-dollar industry that is fueling gang wars in Kingston, the
capital, and a murder rate that ranks among the highest in the world.

Some proponents of decriminalization argue that Jamaican police could focus
more resources on combating the cocaine trade if relieved of targeting
ganja; last year, police officials say, they seized more than 6 tons of
marijuana and destroyed more than 1,000 acres of the plant.

Yet ganja remains plentiful, readily available and cheap; by comparison, a
pound of the Jamaican herb that goes for $26 here can fetch more than
$1,500 in the U.S.

"One opinion on the commission is that [decriminalization] would not
significantly increase the use of marijuana," Chevannes said. "Right now,
anyone who wants to smoke ganja is virtually at liberty to do so. It is
freely available at large gatherings. And, indeed, if police were to arrest
everyone who's doing it, tens of thousands would be in jail."

Still, he added, police here arrest about 5,000 people on marijuana charges
annually, 90% of them for minor offenses.

"So, arguably, the only thing the decriminalization of it would be doing is
taking the status of a crime off thousands of people," Chevannes said. "And
most of them are young people.

"Were the commission to recommend decriminalization, it would not seriously
change anything here."