The Predatory Perils of Cannabis Legalization in Jamaica

Abstract

I n 1976, reggae legend Peter Tosh released the album and title track Legalize It. Thirty-nine years later, Jamaica revised its ganja laws to build a legal medicinal cannabis (ganja) industry with the hopes of exporting to the world. Many assumed that Jamaica, and the historically marginalized traditional ganja growers, including the Rastafari, would finally be able to cash in on the green gold rush in an industry one venture capital firm called in 2018 “the most compelling opportunity in the history of capitalism.” Today, it may come as a shock to some that the island infamously associated with prolific cannabis cultivation and consumption reported a shortage in 2021 and recently became an importer of Canadian cannabis. As a result, the most vocal opponents of Jamaica’s cannabis reforms are no longer the police or conservative church congregations, but the traditional growers and Rastafari themselves. How could such a seemingly transformative opportunity “go up in smoke” so quickly? Legalization sounds like an obvious, responsible approach to the longstanding and wide-ranging damages stemming from cannabis prohibition and the subsequent war on drugs. However, given the social, economic, and political power imbalances within and between countries, it isn’t that simple. Unchecked, market-based reforms fail to consider the existing power imbalances in both the domestic and international economies, threatening to undermine the potential benefits of legalization. Instead of gaining employment and income-generating opportunities or access to scarce land, traditional cultivators will likely face greater hardships due to being shut out of the emerging legal industry. While often overlooked, these harmful afterlives of legalization and reform under capitalism are, as expected, filled with contradictions and will continue to compound damaging outcomes for the same communities that were disproportionately impacted during prohibition. In the context of the Caribbean, the hard truth is that unless legalization is tied to a wider project of radical socioeconomic transformation and reparatory justice, many of the potential gains from cannabis will be lost due to the imbalanced and exploitative nature of the global economy. Without the emergence of mass movements to seriously challenge government policy, neocolonial states like Jamaica will always defer to domestic elites connected to international investors and corporations. As in the past, government policies shrouded in ostensibly progressive rhetoric will facilitate a massive dispossession of traditional ganja growers from their land and livelihoods in an unprecedented upward transfer of wealth. The consequences of this would be greater economic instability, inequality, unemployment, and violence.