Researchers at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona, Jamaica campus have discovered a marijuana plant gene that will increase fruit yield once inserted into plants.
Speaking to media last month at the UWI St Augustine Campus, pro-vice-chancellor and campus principal of UWI Mona, Prof Archibald McDonald acknowledged the findings at UWI’s Campus Council Meeting 2016.
“We have discovered a new gene which we intend to produce commercially because our plant geneticist has assured me that the value of this gene, if it’s inserted into productive plants like fruit trees, it increases the yield,” he said.
UWI Mona principal Professor Archibald McDonald and UWI St Augustine Principal Clement Sankat
Given the decade-long debate about marijuana usage within Jamaican society in the past, researchers at UWI Mona have since teamed with both local and international partners such as the US-based Citiva Jamaica LLC to prove the many benefits of the cannabis (marijuana) plant.
McDonald said Mona’s current research includes the Charlotte’s Web strain of cannabis which was featured in the three-part CNN documentary, Weed.
The plant gained popularity after it was successfully used to treat a US girl, Charlotte Figi, with Dravet syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy.
While McDonald had not mentioned how soon this gene would be commercialised, he insisted that UWI’s biotechnology centres and natural product institutes have been researching herbs for a long time.
Jamaica was the first Caribbean country to decriminalise small amounts of marijuana in February 2015.
Flashback April 2015: Research fellow at UWI Mona, Louis Moyston and principal of UWI, Professor Archibald McDonald, plant Jamaica’s first legal cannabis plant in front of the Faculty of Medical Sciences’ Teaching and Research Complex. Photos courtesy Mark Bell from the Jamaican Observer.
In the past, Chief Justice Ivor Archie has called on the T&T government to decriminalise the use of marijuana to ease the backlog of cases burdening the judicial system.
Chief Justice Ivor Archie delivers his address in the Convocation Hall, Hall of Justice, during the ceremonial opening of the 2013-2014 law term where he called for the decriminalisation of marijuana. On the pros of decriminalising marijuana, Archie said: “In an economy where the State is the major employer and a criminal conviction is a bar to employment, we may be pushing minor non-violent offenders into criminality when they can be saved.” He described the economic and social consequences of incarcerating people for possession and consumption of marijuana as immense and suggested drug treatment courts as a viable alternative. “Moreover, it is now appearing that the consensus about many of the assumptions about the effects of marijuana in particular is unraveling,” he said. Photo: Shirley Bahadur
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Former Attorney General, Garvin Nicholas, has also publicly expressed similar views in support of the decriminalisation of marijuana.
There is now a considerable body of evidence that suggests that decriminalization of drugs leads to safer societies! The...
Posted by Garvin Nicholas on Wednesday, 9 March 2016
“There is now a considerable body of evidence that suggests that decriminalisation of drugs leads to safer societies! The time has come for mature and widespread discussion on this issue as one of the key tools in the fight against crime!” he posted on his Facebook page.
Speaking to the Guardian last Wednesday, Nicholas explained if marijuana was decriminalised, there would be a collapse of the gang industry in T&T.
He referred to the high crime rates in Portugal almost 14 years ago where statistics showed a significant reduction as a result of the decriminalisation of drugs.
Nicholas noted that with the decriminalisation of marijuana, the government could easily identify people who were addicts, control the quality and price of the drug, reducing the need for theft and get taxation from marijuana users.
As T&T law stands, any person found in possession of marijuana, either on their person or property, may be liable to a fine of $25,000 or imprisonment up to five years on summary conviction at the Magistrates’ Court.
WPC Danielle Ashe sorts through marijuan trees which were seized last yer. The value of the drug was estimated at $500,000.
If convicted on indictment at the High Court, a person is liable to a fine of $50,000 and imprisonment for a period not exceeding ten years.
However there appears to be a shift in public opinion regarding marijuana. Caricom heads of government have commissioned a report to analyse the financial feasibility of medical marijuana for the region. The report is expected to be out sometime in 2016.
Former Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, during her term in office, said she was awaiting the results of the report to make a decision on the decriminalisation of marijuana. She also added that decriminalisation was a matter for the people to decide.
T&T Guardian made numerous efforts to contact Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi for the government’s position on marijuana decriminalisation, but calls to his phone went unanswered.