KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Jamaica's justice minister has signed an order to expunge some marijuana-related convictions now that the island has partially decriminalized small amounts of pot.

Justice Minister Mark Golding said Wednesday that he signed an order to provide a path for people to get criminal records purged if they have minor convictions for smoking or possessing marijuana.

THE National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) says it is taking action to stem the prevalence of drug use among young people by educating them.

"Our primary responsibility right now is protecting young people from the negative consequences of using [drugs]," Executive Director of the NCDA, Michael Tucker told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

This comes on the heels of reports that students were ingesting marijuana in candies and the recent legislative amendment to the Dangerous Drugs Act, which created several opportunities for the use of marijuana in Jamaica because of the decriminalisation of small amounts of the weed.

SAN JUAN – Marijuana is the most-used drug among convicted and accused criminals in seven Caribbean countries, according to a new study from Jamaica’s National Council on Drug Abuse.

“The highest proportion was reported in Dominica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the lowest proportion was in St. Kitts and Nevis, while Jamaica reported approximately 75 percent of inmates used marijuana,” NCDA Research Analyst Uki Atkinson said in a statement.

Conducted in 2014, the NCDA survey sought to explore the relationship between drugs and crime in Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda and St. Kitts and Nevis.

HAMILTON, Bermuda (CMC) — A former policeman who said financial pressures had "backed him into a corner" has been jailed for four years after he was caught trying to smuggle more than US$200,000 worth of cannabis into Bermuda from Canada.

Owen Simons, a 43-year-old Bermudian, hid the drugs inside 35 small black packages that were folded into two new air beds before boarding a flight from Toronto to Bermuda in July last year, the Supreme Court was told.

Simons, who was living in Canada at the time, was stopped at Bermuda's L F Wade International Airport as he picked up his luggage.

As customs officers searched his bags and found the packages wrapped in carbon paper they asked Simons what they contained, to which he replied: "Weed."

WITH the announcement — and then postponement — of the Ewarton Rastafarian Community/St Catherine Ganja Growers & Producers Association Ganja/Herbal Festival, I can't help but think about the future of the proposed ganja industry in Jamaica.

The Ewarton Rastafarian community and the ordinary ganja growers alike have decided to celebrate the new "freedom" granted to a group that has, for years, been persecuted for using a plant that they hold dearly in their religious practices. The ganja plant has also been very much celebrated among the ordinary "bald head" youth in Jamaica and it is no wonder they too are delighted at the recent changes in the laws treating with possession of the herb.

Weed farmers at Hotbox Jamaica's Ganja School want to know how to grow quality exports for Canada's medpot market, but Health Canada seems freaked out by the idea

Parishes in Jamaica are getting in on medpot growing - they've set up local pot growers' associations promoting farmers role as shareholders, not sharecroppers.

St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica - Jamaican ganja farmers have been using the same methods of producing marijuana for generations, but the modern weed world seems to have passed them by.

KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) – Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Transport, Dr Morais Guy, said a provision is to be added to the Road Traffic Act to prohibit smoking of ganja while driving.

He said if a person smokes ganja while driving or in charge of a motor vehicle on a road or other public place, he or she would be fined J$10,000.

“We feel that we have the obligation and the responsibility to ensure that people who are driving should not be smoking at the same time,” Dr Guy said in the House of Representatives on Tuesday (June 30).

He was closing the debate on the report of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on the Road Traffic Act, which was adopted.

By Gavin Goffe

RECENTLY, our Minister of Justice, Senator Mark Golding, was reported as encouraging employers to review their policies on the issue of the personal use of ganja and "modernise their practices" in the light of the changes to the law, so that they don't treat this as a basis for excluding somebody from a job. His primary concern, it would appear, was that an employee could now legally smoke ganja in the privacy of his home and yet be dismissed if the substance was detected in the employer's drug test. He added that it was a matter for the employer to decide how to treat with the issue -- a view shared by the President of the Jamaica Employer's Federation, David Wan.

The Education Ministry is calling for the authorities to pursue and prosecute vendors who sell sweets laced with ganja to students.

The call from the Education Ministry follows the disclosure last week that students at the privately run Hillel Academy got sick after ingesting ganja through a popular candy.

Thwaites, who is attending an education conference in the Bahamas, is reiterating that the use of ganja, tobacco and alcohol is forbidden in schools.

He says persons who market the products, in any form, to students should be prosecuted.

The Education Minister says he is confident that the administration at Hillel will appropriately deal with the issue.

Associate Professor and Dean, College of Health Sciences Dr Ellen Campbell-Grizzle, discuss the QunataCann2TM instant annabis analysis machine (pictured) recently donated to UTech by Steep Hill Labs Inc, USA. Looking on at left is Dr Donald Land, Chief Scientist, Steep Hill Labs Inc.

THE University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) has further advanced research efforts to examine the scientific and medicinal properties and potential of the cannabis (marijuana) plant with the acquisition of a cannabis testing machine known as QuantaCann2.