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Steve Kubby: Medical Marijuana in Jamaica

February 7th, 2009 · 4 Comments

Emailed to contact.ipr@gmail.com by Steve Kubby and posted at shadowcabinet.us. Steve Kubby was the 2008 and 2000 runner up for the Libertarian Party VP nomination, the 1998 California Libertarian Party candidate for Governor, and a candidate for the 2008 Libertarian Presidential nomination. Posted to IPR by Paulie. Disclosure: I worked on Kubby’s 2008 Presidential nomination campaign.


A solder, armed with an assault rifle, steps onto the road and orders us to pull over. I quickly take one more toke and put out my joint, blow out my smoke, and prepare to go into warrior mode. Next I hear a loud, belligerent voice demanding to know if there are guns or drugs in our vehicle, a gleaming white BMW 645i, that obviously brought us this unwanted attention.


Before I can say anything, my host speaks up and says he has a 9 mm automatic pistol. He then disarms the loaded clip and hands it over to the soldier.


“Where’s your permit?” demands the soldier.


“I left it at home,” says my host.


The soldier becomes furious and threatens to impound the car and drag him off to jail. Instead of responding, my host turns, leans into the car and smiles at me.


“He’s just trying to squeeze some money out of me, don’t worry,” he quietly tells me.


My host dials up the Speaker of the House, the number two man in the government and puts him on speakerphone.


“Do you know who your fucking with, mon?”


The solder recognizes the voice of Speaker and begins to apologize profusely.


“You should have told me who you were; I was just looking for some lunch money,” he pleads.


My host tells me he also left is wallet behind and asks me for $1000 Jamaican, or about $15 US, which I quickly hand over to him.


“I smelled marijuana,” says the soldier, looking to squeeze a little more out of the deal.


“Yes, you did,” says my host, glaring back at the ill at ease soldier.


Life is certainly stranger than fiction, when you enter the world of medical marijuana.


In September 2007, Jamaica voters dumped the socialist,People’s National Party (PLP), and elected a somewhat more right wing, Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). That victory was largely made possible by the Rastafari movement. One year later, I received an invitation from the new government to meet with them and discuss medical marijuana. The invitation, I was told, was brokered by a wealthy Jamaican who served as the “Spiritual Advisor to the JLP.”


I flew down to Jamaica in October and spent a month there in meetings. During that time, I met with a number of resort owners who are anxious for medical marijuana tourists to come to stay with them. My Rastafari urged me to stay in Negril, at the Bar B Barn. I politely declined and told them I’m not into Country Western. They laughed and told me to trust them on this.


Soon, I found myself staying, right on the beach, at one of the most cannabis friendly resorts in the world. Toking up was no problem anywhere in the resort, including the dining area. Meanwhile, beach venders offered sticky buds for $15 US. Thanks to my Rasta friends, I was able to secure medical grade cannabis for $50, an outrageous price by Jamaican standards, but totally worthy.


Jamaica’s incredibly medicinal sativa strains have been badly polluted by indicas from Europe. Part of my mission in Jamaica was to determine if these incredibly valuable medicinal strains still exists. Jamaican have used these strains medically for hundreds of years, but the lure of quicker flowering and more expensive indica strains, has been devastating to the old Landrace strains that had been carefully bred for medical properties.


Strains from Cambodia and Thailand are grown in Jamaica and the resulting soaring sativas are outstanding. However, indigenous Jamaican strains like LambsBreath seem more elusive than ever.


During my entire stay, the Spiritual Advisor, personally drove me and served as my host — the same advisor and host who packs a 9 mm and drives the V8 BMW.


My host arranged for me to meet with a number of officials, including Speaker of the House and Minister of Health and Environment, as well as former MP and current president of Jamaica Air. I also met with a physician and scientist, who have been producing medical cannabis medicines in Jamaica for over a decade.


During my stay, the Jamaican Cabinet met with the Minister of Health to debate allowing medical cannabis in Jamaica. A decision was made that there was too great of a risk of economic sanctions by the US for Jamaica to change its laws, at least for now.


Meanwhile, for those who rely upon cannabis as their medicine, or those who find other value in this amazing herb, Jamaica offers a safe and pleasant alternative.



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Filed Under: Libertarian Party

4 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Jake Witmer // Feb 8, 2009 at 2:12 am

    Interesting, Steve. Did you get a chance to discuss what kind of benefit the free market might have for Jamaica, long term? Did you get a chance to discuss the wealth that could come from allowing e-gold (and every private munitions company in the world) a sanctuary there?

    The first country to embrace capitalism, and reject US prohibition will be a virtual paradise (although it might take a few years, and might be subject to US military invasions and assassination attempts).

  • 2 paulie cannoli // Feb 8, 2009 at 11:33 am

    The first country to embrace capitalism,

    See

    http://mises.org/story/2099#6

    While I’ve said I don’t want to dwell on terminological issues, I can’t resist making a point about “capitalism” and “socialism.” Rand used to identify certain terms and ideas as “anti-concepts,” that is, terms that actually function to obscure our understanding rather than facilitating it, making it harder for us to grasp other, legitimate concepts; one important category of anti-concepts is what Rand called the “package deal,” referring to any term whose meaning conceals an implicit presupposition that certain things go together that in actuality do not.[11] Although Rand would not agree with the following examples, I’ve become convinced that the terms “capitalism” and “socialism” are really anti-concepts of the package-deal variety.

    Libertarians sometimes debate whether the “real” or “authentic” meaning of a term like “capitalism” is (a) the free market, or (b) government favoritism toward business, or (c) the separation between labor and ownership, an arrangement neutral between the other two; Austrians tend to use the term in the first sense; individualist anarchists in the Tuckerite tradition tend to use it in the second or third.[12] But in ordinary usage, I fear, it actually stands for an amalgamation of incompatible meanings.

    Suppose I were to invent a new word, “zaxlebax,” and define it as “a metallic sphere, like the Washington Monument.” That’s the definition — “a metallic sphere, like the Washington Monument. ” In short, I build my ill-chosen example into the definition. Now some linguistic subgroup might start using the term “zaxlebax” as though it just meant “metallic sphere,” or as though it just meant “something of the same kind as the Washington Monument.” And that’s fine. But my definition incorporates both, and thus conceals the false assumption that the Washington Monument is a metallic sphere; any attempt to use the term “zaxlebax,” meaning what I mean by it, involves the user in this false assumption. That’s what Rand means by a package-deal term.

    Now I think the word “capitalism,” if used with the meaning most people give it, is a package-deal term. By “capitalism” most people mean neither the free market simpliciter nor the prevailing neomercantilist system simpliciter. Rather, what most people mean by “capitalism” is this free-market system that currently prevails in the western world. In short, the term “capitalism” as generally used conceals an assumption that the prevailing system is a free market. And since the prevailing system is in fact one of government favoritism toward business, the ordinary use of the term carries with it the assumption that the free market is government favoritism toward business.

    And similar considerations apply to the term “socialism.” Most people don’t mean by “socialism” anything so precise as state ownership of the means of production; instead they really mean something more like “the opposite of capitalism.” Then if “capitalism” is a package-deal term, so is “socialism” — it conveys opposition to the free market, and opposition to neomercantilism, as though these were one and the same.

    And that, I suggest, is the function of these terms: to blur the distinction between the free market and neomercantilism. Such confusion prevails because it works to the advantage of the statist establishment: those who want to defend the free market can more easily be seduced into defending neomercantilism, and those who want to combat neomercantilism can more easily be seduced into combating the free market. Either way, the state remains secure.

    I don’t mean to suggest that evil statists have deliberately conspired to corrupt our language to serve their own nefarious ends. That sometimes happens, of course, but it’s not necessary. Rather, a perverse invisible-hand process is at work: the prevailing use of the terms “capitalism” and “socialism” persists because it serves to preserve the statist system of which it is a part. Think of it as spontaneous ordure. (Sorry.)

    If “capitalism” and “socialism” are such potentially confusing terms, should we be even more cautious about the loaded term “anarchism”? Actually, I don’t think so. People’s initial associations with the term may be more negative, but they’re also more superficial: people are much quicker to admit that they don’t know much about anarchism and aren’t sure what anarchists really stand for than they are to make analogous admissions about capitalism and socialism. It also highlights the distance from other views and thus makes compromises with or backslidings into such views harder to gloss over. Plus the term “anarchism” has the advantage of sounding exciting and radical, which gives it a certain appeal, especially among the young.

    and reject US prohibition will be a virtual paradise (although it might take a few years, and might be subject to US military invasions and assassination attempts).

    Would, not might.

  • 3 Cockett // Feb 9, 2009 at 1:59 am

    Jamaica needs to use up the natural resources it has

  • 4 paulie cannoli // Feb 9, 2009 at 2:03 am

    Thank Jah for renewable resources, mon!

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