IF you entered the Andrews Memorial Church Seventh-day Adventist Church two Saturdays ago with any doubt as to which country produced the highest grade marijuana crop, your darkness would have no doubt been enlightened after listening to Pastor Lorenzo King's cutting sermon.

Not only did the controversial King reveal that Jamaica had the highest grade ganja, he also named St Elizabeth, St Ann and Westmoreland as the parishes where the country's best weed can be found.

King's hailing of the weed came as he spoke of a conspiracy by former United States President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to destroy the crop, while questioning whether this was done, as officially stated, in the interest of national and regional security or to keep Jamaica poor.

"What is the truth behind the destruction of the ganja population in Jamaica?" King rhetorically asked congregants, among them Lorna Golding, the wife of Prime Minister Bruce Golding.

"We know that ganja can mad you. I don't need anybody to tell me anything to refute that because I have seen it. And I know that you can smoke ganja and you can live a normal life forever. I know that. What is the truth behind the destruction of the ganja population?"

Relating a version of the truth of the destruction, which he recently gleaned from a man — whom he said "spoke a truth stranger than fiction" — King said that the US gave 12 helicopters to the Jamaica Defence Force with the mandate to find and destroy the ganja population in Jamaica.

The reason, he said, was that researchers at the University of the West Indies had refused to sell the patent for their "glaucoma formula" from cannabis to a US pharmaceutical company for US$6 million.

"Is that in the national or regional interest? Or isn't that intended to keep us poor; because maybe, the Jamaican ganja, is the best ganja in the world," King said to a mixture of surprise and laughter.

"It is scientifically proven, it is the best ganja in the world... The best parishes in Jamaica to grow ganja are Westmoreland, St Elizabeth and St Ann. These are the best parishes," King said.

Added King: "Is it because this was a crop which was an invention that would lift us out of poverty? Think about it, governments are not in the business of truth-telling. So because of that, brothers and sisters, intelligent people relate to official government statements with a healthy dose of suspicion. I suspect every official statement that is made by the Government.

"And I am suspicious because I know the difference between information, misinformation and disinformation and if you don't know, do a little reading," he told congregants.