Ganja in Jamaica - Introduction

Ganja in Jamaica

Introduction

Ganja in Jamaica is a unit of the 'Disparities in Law and Power' project of the Interactive Science Group, an affiliate of the Research Institute for the Study of Man, in New York.

One objective of this unit is to create a comprehensive data bank dealing with diverse aspects of the ganja or marijuana phenomenon in Jamaica in tandem with the efforts of the National Commission on Ganja currently underway in that country as well as with other formal debates on decriminalization now taking place in various parts of the world.

The structure of the website is divided in four parts with a navigation menu located for the convenience of the user at the upper left corner of every content page.

I. The Background section contains legal and historical information about marijuana primarily in Jamaica and to some extent in other countries. It also contains a world-wide chronology of drug use as well as a comprehensive collection of international drug reports that covers the period from the end of the 19th-Century to the present.

II. The News Index brings together contemporary newspaper articles about the issue, the bulk being published by the Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner and by the Jamaican Observer. In addition, a smaller number of related articles are drawn from American, Canadian and European newspapers. Links to Jamaican newspapers as well as to other relevant media outlets are located in that section.

III. The Analyses section is divided in four parts: cultural and social analyses (primarily academic anthropological and sociological publications); medical analyses (primarily medical and pharmacological studies dealing with the medicinal use of marijuana); non-academic commentaries (drawn primarily from newspapers and magazines); and statistical analyses (results of surveys and other quantitative efforts).

IV. The Resources section lists related links on the Internet, bibliographies on marijuana in Jamaica and the Caribbean, on-line libraries, maps, music references, and perspectives on the issue.

This website contains a search engine to facilitate research, particularly recommended for news research, an area where the volume of available material is great. The site map can be located by pressing Search on the menu. Most medical articles included on this site are pdf files that require the Adobe Acrobat reader software, which can be downloaded without fee.

Incompleteness is an unavoidable characteristic of an enterprise of this nature. In this regard, commentaries and suggestions, including references to other materials and information, are most welcome.

This website has been created for educational purposes only and is in conformity with the Copyright Law of the United States and related regulation regarding "Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Reproduction by Libraries and Archives". See the note on Copyrights.

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Last update: April 2001.