The first legal Cannabis plant has been planted in Jamaica

We’ve already talked about this many times, but “repetita iuvant” said the Latins (repeating does good): cannabis legalization doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t come with a total rejection of the many stereotypes and misconceptions that supported its illegal status. Now, here is a wonderful example of how strong and misleading these stereotypes are. A few days ago the first legal cannabis plant was planted in Jamaica, on the grounds of the University of the West Indies’ campus. This said, cannabis is not actually “legal” yet in Jamaica, although it has been decriminalized. We are talking about a trial, hoping that one day the nation will finally have a legal medical marijuana structure: “I want to know when you start to do the experimentation, and what is found in the plant”, said Jamaica’s Science Minister Philip Paulwell to the media.

Now, how is this related to what I mentioned at the beginning of this post – meaning, how is this related to the misconceptions and stereotypes that have affected our favorite plant for decades? It is quite simple: how many of you think about Jamaica when I say “marijuana”? I bet, many of you. And still, the plant isn’t even legal in the beautiful country where Bob Marley was born. Now, what does this suggest to you? Doesn’t it make you feel a little weird about what you thought you knew about cannabis? Let me tell you how this makes me feel.

More than anything, I feel ashamed, because Jamaica is an exotic, “different” place, and the cannabis-Jamaica connection (I am sorry, Mr. Marley) is just another way to create an idea of marijuana as something – guess what – exotic and “different”. Along the same lines, smoking pot becomes something that doesn’t belong to the “west”, a dangerous, savage act that must be kept under control. What if we actually realized that cannabis belongs to Europe and the United States just like it belongs to China, Jamaica and a pretty much every other nation on Earth?

Forget about Jamaica as “the paradise of ganja”. Today, you can actually go online and buy seeds, and even weed (here is a website where you can do it, one of the best ones http://greenhouseseeds.nl/) without moving from your house. Cannabis is not an exotic, savage plant: it belongs to every human culture, because humanity has been using it for millennia. Wake up, and get out of your own stereotypes. l.