![]() ![]() ![]() In her book The First Rasta, exploring the life of the charismatic Rastafari leader Leonard Howell, Helene Lee suggests that Howell’s Pinnacle commune had a symbiotic relationship with local police, who allowed the widespread cultivation of ganja at Pinnacle during the early 1950s, sold across the island through an underground network established by a corrupt businessman, in exchange for lucrative backhanders. The authorities’ approaches to ganja have often been dramatically contradictory in Jamaica. Indeed, last August, a young man from Montego Bay named Mario Deane was beaten to death after being detained with a single spliff. Nevertheless, since 1954, following pressure exerted by the British and American governments to end the ganja trade, marijuana has remained strictly illegal in the country, and locals often faced harsh penalties for possession. Ganja became entrenched in black working class culture in Jamaica during the early decades of the 20th Century. ![]() Peter Tosh’s “Legalize It” may be the ultimate toker’s anthem, yet it was locally banned when first released. But many don’t realize the country’s strange relationship with the drug over the years. Many of the music’s best-known exponents have been followers of Rastafari, who hold the “wisdom weed” as an herbal sacrament. Just as acid rock will always be linked to LSD and whiskey with country & western, reggae has cannabis hardwired into its DNA.
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