Jamaica

Jamaica
Jamaica
The Blue Mountains, eastern Jamaica
Capital	Kingston
Continent	North America
Subregion	Caribbean
Cannabis Status
Legal Status	Decriminalised (2 oz or less); licensed medical and scientific use; Rastafarian sacramental use
Status Since	2015
Enforcement	Possession of 2 oz or less ticketed (J$500 fixed penalty); larger amounts, dealing and export prosecuted
Documentation
Growing Regions	0
Growing Areas	0
Accessions	6
Conservation
Populations	none documented yet

Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean, where cannabis is called ganja. The Hindi name reached the island in the 19th century, with folk uses of the plant, among the indentured labourers from India brought to work on the sugar plantations.^: 1 The first law against growing and importing the plant was passed in 1913, when the colony took up the International Opium Convention; the Dangerous Drugs Law of 1924 and its later amendments made possession, sale and smoking offences and, from 1941, imposed mandatory prison terms.^: 21–24 In the Rastafari movement ganja is a holy plant and its use a ritual.^{: 4, 24}

The Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act of 2015 made possession of two ounces or less a ticketed contravention that carries no criminal record. It allows five plants to a household, exempts sacramental use in the Rastafarian faith and set up the Cannabis Licensing Authority to license a medical, therapeutic and scientific industry in ganja and hemp.^{: 4, 9–12} In 2025 the United States Department of State described Jamaica as the Caribbean's largest producer of cannabis.^: 236

Geography

About 15,000 hectares of cannabis were grown across all 14 parishes of Jamaica in 2013, and the official estimate for 2015 was the same.^: 56 Licensed cultivation covered 15.4 hectares in 2025.

In the hill village that Vera Rubin and Lambros Comitas studied in 1971–1972, commercial growers scattered their plants in bush land, rarely more than 10 or 15 in one place. In most of the island two crops a year could be taken, one growing from April to August and the other from June to November.^: 41 In 1940 Leonard Howell started the first Rastafari community, Pinnacle, in the hills of St Catherine; it had 700 residents and was raided by the police in 1941 and 1954. A specimen collected in 1981 by James A. Duke for the Missouri Botanical Garden is labelled "Mountains of Jamaica". Seed lines kept in Spain are said to come from the Blue Mountains in the east, one of them collected there in 1984.

Demographics

In 1970 Jamaica had 1,861,300 people on 4,411 square miles (11,424 km²).^: 4

Communities with cannabis relationships

The first indentured Indian workers, 261 men, women and children, landed from the Blundell Hunter at Old Harbour Bay on 10 May 1845 to work on the sugar estates. Totals for the migration differ. The Jamaica Information Service gives over 36,400 arrivals before the movement ended in 1912; Rubin and Comitas give about 36,000 between 1845 and 1917, of whom about 18,000 remained when indenture ended;^: 16 Raymond Prince and his colleagues give some 33,000 between 1838 and 1917, clustered in the sugar parishes of Westmoreland, St Thomas and St Catherine.

By the 1970s most ganja users were not East Indians, who formed a small minority, but Black working people in town and country, descendants of the enslaved Africans brought to the island in the 17th and 18th centuries.^: 120 No national figures existed; the estimates Rubin and Comitas collected put users at one-third to two-thirds of the lower class, and in one of their seven study communities half of all males over 15 smoked.^: 37 Their own estimate was that 60 to 70 per cent of the poorer rural population, men, women and children, used ganja in some form.^: 38

Agriculture

Hemp for fibre came to Jamaica at the end of the 18th century but never became a plantation crop.^: 260 A Russian hemp expert brought to Jamaica around 1800 to test the crop found that seed which grew well in Canada gave fibre too fine for cordage there, and commercial cultivation was abandoned. The first botanical reference to the plant on the island is an appendix to the 1807 edition of Bryan Edwards's history of the British West Indies, whose catalogue calls it hemp, of Indian origin.^: 14–15

Ganja growing in the 1970s was, in Rubin and Comitas's phrase, "a poor man's enterprise". To avoid prosecution, growers planted on isolated plots poorly suited to other uses, where ganja "grows easily, 'like a weed'", and left the reaped plants to cure in the field.^: 42 The Act of 2015 defines hemp as cannabis with a THC concentration of no more than 1.0 per cent and gives the Cannabis Licensing Authority the task of building a lawful, regulated industry in hemp and in medical ganja.^{: 2, 12} Licensed producers reported 13,136 kilograms of buds, oil, kief and hash in 2025, up from 7,355.4 kilograms in 2024.

Cannabis in Jamaica

Ganja is the common working-class word for the plant and appears in Jamaican legislation. Rubin and Comitas traced other words to Hindi: kali, the Hindi for buds, names the most potent grade, and the chillum, from Hindi chilam, is properly the pipe bowl.^{: 16, 18, 47} Ganja that has seeded and smells strong is kali, the most expensive; bush or bushweed is the immature, pale green plant without seeds; and green ganja, cut and not yet cured, goes mostly into medicines and teas. The ganja cigarette or cigar is the spliff.^{: 24, 42}

History

Arrival from India

Some Jamaican users believed that the plant was native and had been used by the Arawaks; others held that it came from Africa, and many that it was of divine origin.^: 14 Rubin and Comitas argued instead that the many uses of cannabis came with the indentured labourers from India, the first of whom reached Jamaica in 1845. They pointed to the lack of evidence of cannabis being smoked or used as folk medicine before 1845 and to the Hindi names in Jamaican use, and argued that the "ganja complex" passed from indentured workers to the Black cane cutters on the plantations.^: 15–16 The Smithsonian Institution's account of Rastafari also credits contract labourers from India with introducing ganja in the second half of the 19th century. By the 1970s, Rubin and Comitas wrote, the Indian roots had been forgotten, and some users held that Jamaican ganja came from Africa.^: 37

Colonial laws, 1913–1962

Ganja first appears in official reports in the lunatic asylum report for 1883–1884, which names "gonja" smoking the probable cause of one admission. The report of the Protector of Immigrants for 1892–1893 mentioned that East Indians were believed to be using ganja.^: 20 Concern grew after the asylum report for 1911–1912, and the Council of Evangelical Churches petitioned the Legislative Council against ganja smoking.^: 21 An editorial in The Daily Gleaner of 10 June 1913 called for the cultivation to be forbidden absolutely; its writer claimed to have seen "a coolie gardener" behave "like a raving maniac" under the influence of the weed.^: 171–172

In 1913, while debating the ratification of the International Opium Convention signed at The Hague the year before, the Legislative Council added prohibitions on the import and cultivation of cannabis. The Colonial Secretary told members that an analysis made in India had found ganja one of the least dangerous drugs, and one member argued that the "coolies" were entitled to their form of smoking as members were to their cigars; another asked that employers of "coolie labour" be allowed to destroy the plants on their estates.^: 21–22 The ordinance made growing and importing the plant offences punishable by a fine of up to £100, or up to 12 months' imprisonment in default, but did not make possession or use an offence. Rubin and Comitas note that it passed despite the findings of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1893–1894.^: 22 Comitas concluded that the ganja laws "appear, in historical retrospect, to have been based on class and racial factors rather than on objective medical and social evidence".^: 131

The Dangerous Drugs Law of 1924 punished cultivation, possession, sale or smoking of ganja with up to six months' imprisonment or a fine of up to £100 on a first conviction. The amendment of 1941 brought mandatory imprisonment into Jamaican law for the first time.^: 23–24 That year 115 police, half of them armed, raided Pinnacle to seize Howell, who was reportedly attacked more than once for his stand on growing ganja in the community and on its use as a sacrament. After the second raid, on 22 May 1954, 110 of his followers were found guilty of possessing ganja, and the police returned on ganja eradication expeditions into the 1970s. In 1960 several British soldiers were killed in an insurrection by a religious group led by Claudius Henry, and the press and much of the public linked the disorder with ganja. At the end of 1961 growing and dealing in ganja became indictable offences with obligatory imprisonment of up to five years and an unlimited fine.^: 26 Rubin and Comitas observed that the amendments of 1941 and 1961 both came at times of economic or political unrest and of fear of groups such as the Rastafari and Henry's followers.^: 27

After independence

Jamaica acceded to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs on 29 April 1964. An amendment of 1964 raised the mandatory term for a first conviction of possession, widened police powers of search, made it an offence to allow premises to be used for growing or smoking ganja and let the police seize vehicles suspected of carrying it. The police had used helicopters to search for fields since 1963.^: 31–32

The final report of Rubin and Comitas's study was presented to the minister of health of Michael Manley's new government on 28 March 1972 and printed in the Gleaner in 50 daily instalments from 3 June.^: 32 The amending act passed on 11 August 1972 kept the maximum penalties for possession, raised those for growing and dealing and abolished mandatory sentences. Four days later the Governor-General pardoned some 200 prisoners serving mandatory terms.^: 34

Jamaica acceded to the Convention on Psychotropic Substances on 6 October 1989 and ratified the 1988 convention against illicit traffic on 29 December 1995. In May 2001 Barry Chevannes, chairman of the National Commission on Ganja, said that most of the people and organisations who had appeared before it supported decriminalising the private use of ganja. Its report, submitted that year, recommended that Parliament decriminalise the use of small quantities by adults and use as a religious sacrament, and that a cannabis research agency be set up. In 2014 Parliament amended the Criminal Records (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act so that convictions for possessing two ounces or less, for smoking ganja or for possessing a pipe would not leave a criminal record. The Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act followed in 2015 (see Legal status).

Cultivation

In the community Rubin and Comitas studied, at least 39 of 153 households were known to grow ganja: 22 for their own use only and 17 also for sale.^: 41 The largest grower planted about 200 "roots", the next four about 100 each and the other commercial growers 30 to 100; those who grew for themselves seldom planted more than 10 in a season. The biggest producers reckoned that a mature plant yielded one to three pounds of marketable ganja.^: 41

Since 2015 a household may grow up to five plants, which the law deems grown for medical or therapeutic use of the leaves or for horticulture.^: 4 Licensed cultivators hold tiered licences by area, from Tier 1 for 4,047 square metres or less to Tier 3 for more than 20,235 square metres. In 2026 the Authority opened two fee-free programmes for traditional growers: a cultivator's (transitional) special permit for applicants who cannot afford a cultivator's licence, on land of no more than 2,023.43 square metres, and a special community permit.^{: 615, 623–625} The transitional permit gives its holder two years to reach Tier 1.

Preparations and consumption

In the early 1970s Jamaicans used ganja in four ways: they smoked it, drank it in medicinal teas and tonics, applied it externally in plasters and ointments and cooked it in food.^: 124 The spliff, about four inches long, mixed ganja with tobacco; the 30 smokers examined in Rubin and Comitas's clinical study smoked from one to 24 a day, seven on average. The chillum served as the Jamaican equivalent of the hookah.^: 124 Tea was the most common form in the countryside and was recommended for children from infancy; tonics were blended from rum, or wine and rum, and set to stand.^{: 48, 50} One man cooked "pepperpot soup" with susumba, calalu and green ganja, and poultices and compresses were used against pain and on open wounds. Ganja was used in some form in 106 of the community's 153 households.^: 51 Those who took it only as tea tended to belong to the higher social levels or to aspire to them, while smoking marked the lowest; almost all users said that ganja helped them do manual work.^: 55 The ganja that those 30 smokers supplied to the study contained from 0.7 to 10.3 per cent Δ⁹-THC, with a mean of 2.96 per cent.^: 261

The pharmacologist Manley West and the ophthalmologist Albert Lockhart, of the University of the West Indies at Mona, developed Canasol, ganja-based eye drops for glaucoma. West said he took up the work after country people told him that an eye wash of ganja in water made them see better; in the early 1990s he also developed Asmasol, for asthma, colds and flu. Canasol has been sold in Jamaica and other Caribbean countries since the early 1990s; a review of 2020 found no scientific evidence or randomised trials of its effect, so that its efficacy and safety remain unknown. In a study led by the anthropologist Melanie Dreher, 24 Jamaican newborns exposed to ganja before birth scored no differently from 20 unexposed newborns in their first days and better at one month, a result the authors traced to the social and economic position of the mothers who used ganja.

Religious and cultural use

Among the Rastafari the use of ganja has been made a ritual and is a basic element of belief.^: 4 Rastafari beliefs blend the political philosophy of Marcus Garvey with "a fundamental interpretation of the Bible" and hold that ganja is a holy plant whose use the Bible describes.^: 24 Elders smoke it in a pipe called the chalice, which resembles the Indian chillum. The Act of 2015 exempts possession of ganja "as a sacrament in adherence to the Rastafarian faith", lets the minister of justice authorise adherents aged 18 or over to grow it for that purpose on designated land, and protects those attending events held to celebrate or observe the faith.^{: 4, 6–7}

Rubin wrote that few working-class Jamaican men had not had a first smoke of cannabis, an informal rite of passage to manhood, and found that the "ganja vision" that often came with it, and its content, followed a standard cultural pattern.^: 261–262

Trade and commerce

In the early 1970s Jamaica imported no ganja and had built an illegal export trade to North America and the United Kingdom.^: 41 In the seven communities studied, the larger dealers ran "herb camps" and "herb yards" serving 50 to 100 smokers each; Comitas found no centralised, hierarchical distribution network at local, regional or island level.^{: 123, 126} Rubin and Comitas also reported smuggling of Jamaican ganja abroad for money and, apparently, for small arms.^: 35

The United States State Department called Jamaica the largest Caribbean producer and exporter of marijuana in 1999 and the largest Caribbean supplier of marijuana to the United States in 2013, when some trafficking groups exchanged Jamaican marijuana for cocaine. By 2025 illegal firearms were flowing continuously from Haiti to Jamaica, where they were often exchanged for drugs.^: 237

The licensed trade began when the Cannabis Licensing Authority issued its first two licences, for processing and for cultivation, on 18 October 2017. The first legal export, of medical cannabis oil to Canada, was announced on 27 September 2018. By September 2023 the Authority had issued 160 licences, among them 35, 23 and 12 cultivator's licences in tiers 1 to 3, 14 processing licences and 63 retail and "herb house" licences; a herb house may sell ganja products for medical, scientific and therapeutic purposes and set aside space for consumption on site. By April 2026 it had issued nearly 200. On the Authority's figures, the legal industry was worth US$63 million in 2025.

Legal status

Ganja is controlled by the Dangerous Drugs Act as amended by the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act, 2015 (Act No. 5 of 2015). The Senate passed the bill on 6 February 2015 and the House of Representatives on 24 February; the Act came into operation on 15 April 2015.^: 28: 1

Possession of more than two ounces remains an offence.^: 2 A person found with two ounces or less is not arrested or detained but may be given a notice to pay a fixed penalty of J$500 within 30 days; the contravention does not form part of the criminal record. A person under 18, or an adult who appears dependent on ganja, is referred to the National Council on Drug Abuse. Failure to pay is tried in the Petty Sessions Court, which may order unpaid community work or a fine of J$2,000.^: 9–11 Smoking ganja in a public place, or within five metres of the entrance, exit, window or ventilation intake of one, is prohibited and is likewise ticketed;^: 3 places registered for Rastafarian worship are excluded from the definition of a public place.^: 16–17

Possession is also lawful for medical or therapeutic purposes recommended in writing by a registered medical practitioner or an approved health practitioner, and for scientific research by an accredited tertiary institution or approved by the Scientific Research Council. Visitors may obtain a Ministry of Health permit to buy and possess up to two ounces for medical or therapeutic use. Handling ganja for medical, therapeutic or scientific purposes requires a licence or permit.^{: 4–5, 8} The Act raised the fines elsewhere in the principal Act, among them the maximum for importing or exporting ganja on summary conviction, from J$500,000 to J$3 million.^: 26 The Authority's interim regulations, gazetted on 5 May 2016, set up cultivator's, processing, transport, retail and research and development licences.

In its report for 2016 the International Narcotics Control Board stated that these regulatory developments were "not in accordance with the 1961 Convention, which limits the use of cannabis to medical and scientific purposes".^: 55

Enforcement

In 1999 Jamaica, as a matter of policy, used no herbicide on cannabis but cut it by hand. That year the authorities seized and destroyed 56.2 tonnes of marijuana and met an eradication goal of 800 hectares. The area eradicated was 711 hectares in 2012, 247 in 2013 and 588 in 2014, and 725 hectares in 2015.^: 56 In 2024 Jamaica confiscated 18.07 tonnes of marijuana.^: 237

In October 2015 the minister of justice, Mark Golding, said that the reform had cut arrests by about 1,000 a month. The Ministry of National Security told the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission in 2016 that more than 2,000 people had had their criminal records expunged since the amendment.^: 17

Growing Regions

Landrace cannabis growing regions currently documented on the wiki: No growing regions documented yet.

Growing Areas

Landrace cannabis growing areas currently documented on the wiki: No growing areas documented yet.

Accessions

Accession ID	Name	Collected	Area
CBG-JAM-UNK-0120130001	Jamaica Blue Mountain 2013
VIB-JAM-UNK-0100000001	Jamaican Lambsbread General Population
VIB-JAM-UNK-0100000001-R1	VIB Jamaican Lambsbread IBL
VIB-JAM-UNK-0100000001-R2	VIB Jamaican Lambsbread Reproduction
VIB-JAM-UNK-0100000002	JBM85 General Population
VIB-JAM-UNK-0119840001	Jamaican Blue Mountains General Population 1984	1984

Conservation status

Preserved specimens of cannabis from Jamaica include one collected by Curtis Gates Lloyd in January 1892 and one collected by Duke in 1981, both at the Missouri Botanical Garden. A specimen from the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies in Kingston, now in the Economic Botany Collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is labelled with the common names ganja and kali among others.

Seed lines named for Jamaica are kept in Europe by the Vibes Collective and by Cannabiogen, a Spanish seed company. The United States National Plant Germplasm System holds one line under Jamaica, G 33715 "Jamaican Lambsbread", donated in 2023. The genebank's record calls the line an F4 of a cross between two Spanish "heirlooms", Jamaican Lambsbread and Jamaican Blue Mountain, and calls their provenance uncertain. Testifying in 2005, Mahmoud ElSohly of the University of Mississippi named Jamaica among the countries, with Mexico, Colombia, Thailand, India and Turkey, whose seed had come into the university's inventory over the years.^: 1255 The special permits of 2026 are aimed at bringing traditional ganja growers into the licensed industry.

Recent news

Article	Date	Category
News:2026-04-16/Policy/cannabis-licensing-authority-launches-fee-free-special-permit-programmes-for-traditional-ganja-growers-in-king	16 April 2026	Policy

See also

• Cannabis and Culture (1975)
• Ganja
• Ganja in Jamaica (1975)
• United States and cannabis eradication abroad
• Indian Hemp Drugs Commission
• Landrace Cannabis
• Panama
• Rastafari