JAMAICAN ganja — the race against time..... Three-day conference at UWI will tell law-makers opportunities slipping away...."We are 40 years late," said Dr Albert Lockhart, a leading opthalmologist who helped pioneer marijuana derived medicines such as Canasol for treating glaucoma, the eye disease and Asmasol for asthma sufferers.

BY DESMOND ALLEN executive editor - special assignment allend@jamaicaobserver  Thursday, May 22, 2014   

JAMAICA is already over 40 years behind in decriminalisation of ganja and a three-day conference which kicks off today at the University of the West Indies (UWI) will signal to legislators here that time is not on Jamaica's side.

"We are 40 years late," said Dr Albert Lockhart, a leading opthalmologist who helped pioneer marijuana derived medicines such as Canasol for treating glaucoma, the eye disease and Asmasol for asthma sufferers.

Lockhart, and the late Dr Manley West of the UWI intensified medical research on ganja in 1972 after then Health Minister Dr Kenneth McNeill invited them to address parliamentarians on their work and gave them permission to collect, transport and do research on the weed within the bounds of Jamaica.

The duo produced five drugs, starting with Canasol in 1976. When they saw the potential for greater success, they partnered with the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) which was being run by the visionary William Saunders to form a commercial enterprise called AMPEC, a combination of the names Albert, Manley and Petroleum Corporation. In 1987, they produced Asmasol.

"We have other drugs that are not yet registered because registration is very expensive," Lockhart said in an interview with the Jamaica Observer, adding that the selling agents in Jamaica for AMPEC is Health Brands Limited.

Lockhart argued that Jamaica should have been much farther ahead in production of ganja for medicinal purposes but that the ball was dropped after the 1972 parliamentary committee breakthrough.

Science Minister Phillip Paulwell assured ganja advocates that decriminalisation of the weed would come this year but while the legal fine-tuning is being done, the rest of the world, led by a fast growing number of American states, is racing to decriminalise cannabis. Colorado, first out of the block with legalisation, is reporting millions of dollars in taxes raised from rapid sales of the weed, boosted by apparently successful treatment of children with epilepsy. more