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Legalise us - Orange Hill residents eager to farm weed the right way
November 06, 2018
Residents and ganja growers in Orange Hill, Westmoreland, are calling for a speedier process to the local legalisation of marijuana.
The people told the WESTERN STAR that the Government is dragging its feet towards legalising and streamlining the multibillion-dollar cannabis industry.
"Westmoreland has been said to the ganja parish and the best of the best is from Orange Hill, but the community has been suffering from a long time," said Easton Owens, one of the directors of
the Westmoreland Hemp and Ganja Association.
Hyacinth Jackson noted that ganja farmers need to be brought under a legal framework to avoid prosecution, but that will only happen if the Government is serious about legalising the industry.
The Westmoreland Hemp and Ganja Association has been lobbying for a licence from the Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA) for quite some time, but to no avail.
Owen said that the CLA was to also implement the Alternative Development Programme (ADP) for residents to start legally farming marijuana without a licence in Orange Hill but that project has yet to get off the ground.
"Orange Hill was to be given a grant of $10 million to have the small farmers be taken out of the illegal activity and into mainstream. That was maybe like a year and half ago. The CLA had come and look on a piece of two-acre property that we had proposed for about 18 farmers. The CLA signed off on it, but now they say it is now with the Ministry of Finance to do its part," Owen outlined.
FUNDING NEEDED
"We have the farmers, we have the land, and we have the tools. We just need the funding. Money is from the UN, so it should have been handed over a long time," he added.
Orange Hill residents said they are in need of both legalisation and the programme because the community has much to benefit.
"Knowing that Orange Hill has the name of being the best of the best means everybody will be coming to do business here, and everybody would want to partner with our farmers," Owens stated.
