THE old joke that when the United States sneezes, or even merely sniffles, others get a cold, remains as relevant as ever.

It seems fair to say that positive developments affecting our great northern neighbour are also likely to benefit the rest of us.

Hence, news that the Donald Trump Administration may be considering easing federal restrictions on ganja (referred to elsewhere as marijuana and cannabis) has piqued our interest.

We are told that US federal health and justice authorities are proposing a move for ganja from Schedule One — where it is grouped with hard drugs — to Schedule Three, which recognises increasing medical value and lowered potential for harm.

The approach by the United States has long influenced Jamaican Government policy in relation to ganja, which has deep-rooted cultural significance for our people, more especially those at the socio-economic base.

We recall the gingerly approach — as if walking on hot coals — in early 2015 when the Portia Simpson Miller-led People’s National Party Government piloted legislation for decriminalisation of small quantities of ganja. The well-placed fear then was that a misstep could possibly lead to damaging sanctions being imposed by Washington.

Close to 11 years later the Andrew Holness-led Jamaica Labour Party Administration has no option but to also tread carefully. Hence the comment from junior minister for industry, investment and commerce, Mr Delano Seiveright that, “We are treating these reports [out of the United States] with the necessary caution because nothing has been formally concluded in Washington.”

He adds an upbeat note that, “[I]f the United States does move cannabis from Schedule One to Schedule Three it would be one of the most consequential developments in global cannabis policy in decades.”

Back in 2015 the new ganja law not only put an end to the backward practice of locking away young men for nothing worse than smoking a spliff, it laid the framework for ganja as legitimate business.

A formal licensing authority was established to oversee medical and scientific use. There was also recognition of Rastafari rights to ganja as a sacrament.

Even so, ambitions for a vibrant, formal ganja business sector in Jamaica have remained unfulfilled largely because of fears among bankers and others of possible backlash. This is why Mr Seiveright suggests that if the move to Schedule Three in the USA happens banks may be more willing to work with the ganja sector, and that “new avenues” could be unlocked for “investment, research, manufacturing and trade”.

It needs to be said that the current formal arrangement still has the great majority of Jamaican ganja farmers on the outside looking in — on the wrong side of the law.

Will any change in approach by the US Federal Government make life easier for those farmers who have been the backbone of Jamaica’s ganja sector dating back generations? We suspect not. Mr Seiveright is reported as cautioning that a potential US shift to Schedule Three would not amount to federal legislation.

“This is not a green light for anything goes,” Mr Seiveright said.

Nonetheless, we may well be a wee bit closer to acceptance by Jamaicans, at legal and formal levels, of an assertion supposedly made by National Hero Norman Manley 60-odd years ago that “ganja is no worse than white rum”.