Kathie Lennon – Illegal ganja grower turned advocate, consultant

NOW an entrepreneur, advocate and consultant in the burgeoning cannabis industry, Kathie Lennon has, over the years, held fast to a piece of advice she received from her parents: “If there is a gold rush, sell shovels.”

She is now on a mission to equip Jamaicans with the knowledge necessary to reap the benefits from the cannabis industry, that are currently being enjoyed by other countries.

Lennon, who is from the hills of Mulgrave, St Elizabeth, and was oblivious to the ganja farms in that region growing up, veered from the path on which she was set by her close-knit Christian family.

“I never thought that cannabis was anything special. I knew that Rastafarians planted it in the mountains, because north-west St Elizabeth is known for cannabis as well as farming on a whole,” she recounted.

It was in her teenage years, when she was allowed to work during summer holidays at her aunt’s hotel in Montego Bay, St James, that Lennon developed an interest in marijuana. When she was about 17 years old, a friend at the hotel gave her a subscription to High Times magazine, which opened her eyes to a world beyond her rural utopia.

“I began to read and realised that cannabis meant something different in America from what it did in Jamaica,” she said. “I met Jack Herer, the author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes: Hemp and the Marijuana Conspiracy, and we had a conversation.”

The seeds were then planted in her mind and, as they grew, so did Lennon’s appetite for more knowledge of this once-forbidden plant.

After focusing on mechanical engineering as a student at St Elizabeth Technical High School then completing her studies in information science and technology at Northern Caribbean University, Lennon flitted around in the hospitality industry and then in engineering, but could not find sustainable employment. She eventually turned to her family’s traditional source of income – the land.

“I then decided to get into my own business by farming pineapples, tomatoes and vegetables,” she told All Woman. “And the guys that were working on my farm, they were planting cannabis and they introduced me to cannabis, and I started planting cannabis illegally.”

Even before she started planting the herb on her own farm, Lennon was always curious to learn more about it, so she read widely. As she learnt more about marijuana, she shared bits of information with the Rastafarian ganja farmers in her community. They also shared valuable information, from their experience, with her.

“I had chronic asthma and I wasn’t expected to live past 35, because of how severe it was. A Rastaman gave me cannabis and some coconut oil. And since then, I’ve never had to use a Ventolin (drug used to treat respiratory illnesses) again.”

Lennon became a Rastafarian in her twenties. Her mother, who was a schoolteacher and staunch member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, was not happy with her decision at first.

“But she didn’t isolate me, she didn’t disrespect me. She tried to understand what I was about; and because Seventh-day Adventists and rastas are almost the same in ‘livity’ and eating, it was only the hair. And now the hair is accepted in the church.”

In 2000, when the late Professor Barry Chevannes was commissioned to conduct research on cannabis for Jamaica, Lennon became a conduit for knowledge between illegal ganja farmers and the pilot study.

When the conversation of decriminalising marijuana started again in Jamaica in 2014, Lennon was equipped and ready to share knowledge from other countries that had started their cannabis industries. She had also been covertly experimenting with new technologies in cannabis cultivation on her farm, hidden deep in the Cockpit Country.

“My family has acres and acres of land within the deep Cockpit Country, so I felt safe to do my research. I did a lot of testing, and documented everything. I started to get seeds from overseas and I started to know the different strains and gather information — so I have a really good research on the different strains and how they behave in this environment,” she said.

When the Bill was passed to provisionally decriminalise ganja, Lennon was instrumental in organising the informal network of ganja farmers to start the discussion on making the sector a formal one.

“I started working with the Ganja Growers and Producers Association [Jamaica] and they started to get the parishes together for the conversation. Then I started organising the parishes. I organised about eight parishes by introducing the regular cannabis,” she said. “Then I formed a western coalition that was about education and discussion about cannabis.”

Lennon also travelled extensively overseas, attending conferences and workshops with like-minded individuals from around the world.

“I realised that Jamaica and South Africa was similar, in terms of where they were in the industry. At the time they were also pushing for legalisation, so I reached out to the counsellor [of the South African High Commission in Kingston], and I inquired about whether there was a bilateral agreement between us, and I realised that there was one for sports. I went down to South Africa, initiated talks, and insisted that they came and look what Jamaica was doing so we could work together,” Lennon said.

While in South Africa, Lennon forged a partnership with House of Hemp, a cultivation company, which later became the first company to be awarded a medical cannabis licence in South Africa. She simultaneously set up her own agro-consultancy business in Jamaica, and sunk her fork into the business opportunities that came with the decriminalisation of cannabis in Jamaica.

“When the legalisation process started I wanted Jamaica to go straight into research, because the cultivars and the ‘Brand Jamaica’, where cannabis is concerned, hadn’t been explored. Unfortunately, they went straight into business, so I went into business as well,” she said.

Lennon is a shareholder and director of Leaf of Life Jamaica, a medical cannabis, pharmaceutical and nutraceutical company.

Since farming, especially that of marijuana, is traditionally a male-dominated field, Lennon said she has suffered her share of gender bias in the industry.

“I overcome these obstacles like any woman who is in a ‘man’s world’. You kick some, you kiss some, you smile and nod, you scream and shout, and you try to be silent sometimes, too — whatever the situation calls for. The same way any woman goes through any industry — you try to keep your femininity out of it, but do not keep it on the back burner when you need attention,” she said knowingly.

While admitting that there are many holes that need to be plugged for the Jamaican cannabis industry to be sustainable, Lennon said she is pleased with the progress that is being made so far.

“So where Jamaica is now is a good place. They’re about to put out the export document — that’s good. We have licences in Jamaica now that are functional, which is very good; and we have to put a stop to the threat of industrial hemp, which is also very good,” she lauded.

“The cannabis industry is adding value to the tourism product. Pharmacists are now being engaged to come into the industry at a company level; students at The University of the West Indies are now engaging in the study of cannabis. All of these things are adding value to the Jamaican economy,” she continued.

Lennon, who aspires to be the “Oprah Winfrey of cannabis”, is planning to invest more into the industry on a personal level. In addition to her existing Caribbean beauty line of organic cosmetics with partner Carla Williams, she told All Woman she plans to open a 200-acre cannabis-centred facility soon.

“It would be a cannabis resort — where you can come and get a holistic treatment of herbs, with a growing site and extracting site — the works. We already have buildings but we haven’t applied as yet. We are still in the development stage,” she divulged.

She is still advocating, however, for more to be done to include all stakeholders in the industry.

“What the Government needs to do now is roll out a proper educational programme to match what is happening in the industry. I also want to see them engage traditional farmers; to put them into CASE (College of Agricultural Science and Education) and other agricultural institutions to give them formal training. They have learned something already from their experience, so give them a six-week course so they can come up to scratch — because those are the fastest people who we can train to help to develop the industry.

“What I want to see is a gap being filled, when the learned and experience meet in the middle for the industry,” Lennon said.