KINGSTON, Jamaica — Prominent Consultant Psychiatrist Professor Wendel Abel in a bombshell today noted that significant portions of a recent report by the National Council for Drug Abuse (NCDA) that was interpreted by authorities, as saying that there is a 50 per cent increase in the number children and adolescents using ganja, is wrong.

While speaking on Nationwide’s talk program with Cliff Hughes today, Professor Abel pointed out that ganja use has been stable for the most part and that there is no data on hand to suggest a 50 per cent increase in ganja use since Jamaica decriminalised it.

Abel, who is also Deputy Chairman of the NCDA, was speaking as a raging controversy engulfs Ministry of Health Chief Medical Officer, Dr Winston De La Haye after cannabis law reform advocate Delano Seiveright expressed “suspicion” about De La Haye’s interpretation of the NCDA’s recent report.

Seiveright raised concern about a perceived conflict of interest with De La Haye over the weekend. 

He told OBSERVER ONLINE that, “Dr De La Haye, who is the backbone of the NCDA for many years, spent all his life belittling ganja law reform and has been keen at promulgating information that many, including well respected members of the medical community, view as highly questionable and out of sync with current realities. How then can Dr De La Haye be expected to reasonably and expertly guide ganja related health policy?”

Abel noted also that the NCDA had in fact stepped up its ganja user prevention program following decriminalisation in 2015.