THE weed itself is vastly popular, pungently so. But given a chance yesterday, even those who imbibe stayed away from a forum put together by lobbyists for decriminalising ganja. Virtually no one showed up. To be more precise, only four people were there.

The meeting, hosted by the Coalition for Ganja Law Reform and meant to push support for reform of the laws governing the use of marijuana locally, attracted only three members of the group’s board of directors and the guest speaker Dr Morais Guy who chairs the Joint Select Committee examining recommendations of the National Commission on Ganja.

Despite the lack of participants at the Knutsford Court Hotel, Guy used the opportunity to update the coalition members on the progress of the recommendations that is now up for debate in parliament, having been tabled last year.

“There’s a feeling that the delay has to do with inertia on the part of the committee and the unwillingness for government to explore the Chevannes report,” Guy said.

“However, many factors intervened and that included the fact that the parliamentary year was restricted in terms of the number of debates we could have,” he added, assuring that he will have the report debated on during the winter.

Yesterday, Guy also said he was concerned that Jamaica could get left behind if government fails to give the issue the attention it needs.

“I feel strongly that in the whole scheme of things internationally we are going to be left behind in terms of what we can get from ganja economically and what we can do with it economically,” he said referring, countries such as Australia, Canada an even some corners of the United States that have somewhat soften their policies on the weed.

“It is for those reasons, he continued, why we want to push and see that work come to a conclusion and then we take it to the next level after the debate then exercise some pressure so that the recommendations do not end up into a file 13,” he explained.

Yesterday, Paul Chang of the coalition urged the committee to accelerate the process, highlighting economic as well as the medicinal properties of the weed which he said was recently declared by researchers as having certain fatty acids that are beneficial to humans.

He also made it clear that his coalition does not, in any way, support the use of the weed by minors or advocate the illegal use or trafficking of the weed.

The National Commission on Ganja was led by University of the West Indies professor, Barry Chevannes.

Among the commission’s recommendations were for the amendment of laws so that ganja can be decriminalise personal and private use of ganja by adults.

The committee also recommended that the criminal records Rehabilitation of Offenders Act be amended, “to ensure that these minor offences not be recorded.”

martina@jamaicaobserver.com