Human rights lobby group Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) says the government needs to step up its public education programme on legislation, decriminalising the possession and use of small quantities of ganja.

JFJ says there seems to be confusion among the public and the police which it believes is having serious consequences.

The lobby group made the appeal against the background of the shooting death of Garfield Coburn by policeman Constable Kevon Gordon in Lawrence Tavern, St Andrew on March 6.

Coburn was reportedly shot as he resisted attempts by the police to arrest him after being held with a ganja spliff.

The incident was captured on amateur video.

DENVER - You might think marijuana has been legal in Jamaica for many years. It's certainly known for it. But Jamaica just legalized pot this January, which is why the mayor of Kingston is visiting Denver to learn Colorado's best practices and how Jamaica can learn from us.

Mayor Angela Brown Burke started her day on Friday by meeting with state and city officials. She learned about how the marijuana industry is tightly regulated and some of the challenges Denver faced when implementing it for recreational use.

"What we're doing now in terms of decriminalization is anyone who was convicted before, for 2 ounces or less, it will be taken off of their record. Two ounces or less is now punishable by a ticket," Burke said.

ROSEAU, Dominica, (CMC) – Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit says he is not completely sold on the idea of decriminalising small amounts of marijuana as regional countries debate the issue.

Speaking on the state-owned DBS radio, Skerrit asked what would be done with the “excess’ if the authorities agree to enact legislation allowing for the use of small quantities of the illegal drug.

“What do you do with the excess, and you don’t want to be encouraging the trafficking of this drug to other countries and what would be your relationship with the rest of the world?”

Jamaica has long been the Caribbean island that the developed world most associates with liberal marijuana use.

This perception might stem from the fact that the island's biggest global icon, the late reggae musician Bob Marley, was a committed Rastafarian, who routinely smoked herb as path to deeper spiritual awareness. In this sense, weed might seem as synonymous with Jamaica as reggae music, but despite tourists flocking from the Global North with dreams of spliffing up on a beach and feeling irie, cannabis use was  illegal on the island until recently.

LONDON, England (CMC) — A report by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has found that Jamaica remains the largest illicit producer and exporter of cannabis herb in Central America and the Caribbean.

The INCB 2014 report released here, showed that the island accounted for approximately one third of cannabis herb produced in the Caribbean.

It said that increased production of the drug has been noted in other countries, in particular Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Jamaican lawmakers on Tuesday passed the country’s first decriminalization and medical marijuana law, the result of a 38-year Parliamentary push for marijuana policy reform. The law dramatically alters criminal penalties for “ganja,” as it’s locally described, with possession of up to two ounces warranting only a small fine and no longer resulting in a criminal record. Beyond decriminalization, the law also legalizes the use of cannabis for medicinal, spiritual, and religious purposes. Rastafarianism is a widely-practiced religion in Jamaica, which often involves (but does not require) the ritualistic use of cannabis.

BALRAM Vaswani chairman and 'chief ganja officer' of Ganja Labs USA and the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) on Monday, February 16 signed a three-year agreement to develop high-quality ganja strains.

It forms the latest drive to formalise the medical ganja industry. The strains would grow under controlled indoor and outdoor conditions. But both parties offered no immediate plans to sell the drug as it still awaits clearance to grow it legally.

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Hinduism, Judaism, and the Rastafari movement of Jamaica may seem on the surface to have nothing in common with each other. But if we take a closer look there are things that the three spiritual traditions have in common. These commonalities grew out the colonial experience of Jamaicans.