Female is deadlier than the male

By Lionel Gayle

The above headline certainly reflects a kind of gender disparity.

However, the clever defence lawyer who highlighted that female tendency in a Jamaican court many years ago wasn’t pitting a woman’s character against a man’s.

His male client was before the court for the possession of ganja – more politely called marijuana or cannabis. As it turned out, the attorney allegedly argued convincingly that what his client had in his possession was the male substance of the species. Back then the Jamaican law had identified the female stock of the cannabis sativa strain as the more potent form of hemp.

I cannot recall if in those days the possession of the male cannabis would’ve resulted in an acquittal, or a lighter penalty. But subsequently, as I understood it, the Government of Jamaica amended its narcotics law to embrace both strains of ganja as being dangerous and equally illegal.

Today the feminization of cannabis is a big deal; but it is mostly a business concern for grow-operators who maintain that “female plants that have not been pollinated” produce more marijuana buds. So it’s a cardinal rule not to keep a male plant in a grow room, since the goal is to produce the highly potent sinsemilla (seedless buds).

As the worldwide war on drugs reportedly failed, the high-profile signatories to a report that calls for an end to such futile exercise, said cannabis should be among the drugs decriminalized.

And when the Global Commission on Drug Policy released its report June 2, 2011, in New York, it pointed out that the failure came “with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.”

One of its recommendations is that drug-users who don’t harm others should not be criminalized, marginalized or stigmatized. (http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Report).

Although cannabis is illegal in Canada, this country was the first nation to legalize medical marijuana for the terminally ill “and those suffering certain painful debilities.” Currently, there are more than 4,000 Canadians licensed to use weed for medical purposes.

But in the meantime, the country has been given 90 days to revamp its marijuana laws which a Province of Ontario judge has deemed unconstitutional. The countdown started April 13, 2011.

Sometime in early 2011, the United States recorded its one millionth “legal medical marijuana patients,” who are licensed in sixteen states and the District of Columbia. And a company called weGrow has opened a 21,000-square-foot store in Arizona to sell marijuana grow-op products. The International Business Times, on June 2, 2011, dubbed it the “Wal-Mart of Weed.” (http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/156173/20110602/marijuana-wal-mart-of-weed-home-depot-arizona-la-detroit-federal-crime-medical-marijuana-wegrow-dhar.htm).

In Jamaica where it’s zero tolerance for the possession of the weed, the National Commission on Ganja, in 2001, recommended that the government decriminalize the use of the drug “in small quantities by adults and also as a religious sacrament.” And in April 2011 the government appointed a committee to review the recommendations in that report.

If reggae star Peter Tosh were still around he would have had more reasons to sing his landmark song, “Legalize It” (And I will advertise it). And chances are, the controversial showman would’ve had some disagreement with the Jamaican senior who has expressed his hatred for the word “legalize,” merely because “you can’t legalize weh [what] God create, because God a God.”