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Ganja got the official seal of approval this week when the Government gave the legal thumbs up to seven foreign investors to grow the banned substance on the Lankan isle.

But the JVP cannot bag the dubious credit alone but must equally share it with former President Ranil Wickremesinghe and the SLPP in the previous Parliament for enacting laws that made it possible for ganja to be legally grown.

Special recognition must also be paid to outspoken SLPP MP Diana Gamage, who championed ganja as her personal crusade, despite vehement objections from both in and outside the House of Parliament.

For suffering all the vicious vitriolic attacks hurled at her for relentlessly espousing ganja with a no-holds-barred campaign launched in Parliament but still proceeding undaunted to realise her dream, she stands martyred. In her honour, a statue should be erected in some small corner of every ganja-growing field of Lanka, as the patron saint of the country’s ganja growers.

At the opening of the ‘City of Dreams’ hotel and casino, a billion-dollar project in Colombo, opened on August 2nd by Melco Resorts & Entertainment in partnership with John Keels Holdings, Melco Chief Lawrence Ho declared, “The City of Dreams has the potential to become India’s Macau in the manner Macau is to China.”

GANJA: Hailed as the leaf of Lanka’s economic hopes

With the growing of ganja legalised, there’s no doubt the island is on a fast track to compete with China’s Macau, a 32-square-kilometre island off the southern coast of China, the world’s biggest gambling and vice den, seven times larger than Las Vegas.

The lucky seven, selected from 37 foreign applicants to invest in the cultivation of ganja solely as an export crop, exclusively for medicinal purposes abroad, have been granted legal clearance by BOI as a special project.

As announced by the Commissioner General of the Ayurveda Department, Dr Dhammika Abeygunawardena, each of the seven investors will be required to make a minimum investment of five million dollars to begin a ganja cultivation venture.

The initial outlay, before a sod is cut, will include the two-million-dollar deposit that has to be placed at the Central Bank. Seven million dollars for each of these lucky seven, or in rupee terms, 2.1 billion. Or a grand total of 49 million dollars for all 7 investors given first options to grow ganja in Lanka. Or, in rupee terms, a grand aggregate of 14.7 billion.

And the bad news for thousands of secret ganja smokers is that their smoke-filled dreams of rolling up a joint and having a mind-blowing pull will still remain unrealised, since it is all destined for the West for pharmaceutical use and, in countries where it is legalised, to be used by the young and old alike as a recreational drug.

A recreational drug is described as one that’s often used to experience altered states of consciousness for pleasure or other casual purposes. The pleasures of the wealthy West become the condemned vice of poor nations, south of the border.

DIANA: Hailed as martyred Queen of Ganja

Ganja was elevated and placed on a Sanskrit pedestal when the decried leaf was referred to as Triloka Wijayapathra in the course of President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s budget speech in November 2022, debunking the poetic line ‘a rose smells as sweet by any other name’.

Suddenly ganja gained a mystic status, raised from the gutter where it had laid during colonial rule and held aloft by Ranil Wickremesinghe in Parliament as the magical leaf in which the solution to the county’s economic crisis was secreted.

But it would strictly be for the export market, and its local use, strictly forbidden.

The then opposition, including JVP members, fiercely opposed it. Vijitha Herath asked whether, by selling ganja to the world, the government intends to beat the economic crisis. Next time the government will be selling kudu. When challenged by Diana Gamage whether the JVP had a single plan to bring millions of dollars each month to the country, he replied, “We have many plans which we will reveal when we come to power.”

As reported in the newspapers on December 4, 2022, Buddhist monks, Catholic priests, Hindu swamis and Muslim clergy staged a protest march, with the Cardinal himself participating, against Ranil Wickremesinghe’s plan to legalise ganja cultivation.

Ven. Omalpe Sobitha Thera, who, in the days of the Aragalaya, had made his presence visible on the Galle Face Green by making his much-publicised daily walk to partake of his midday dane on the grounds, declared, “A bid to legalise cannabis under the guise of economic crisis will create a serious cultural and health situation if these plans are launched.”

He further said, “It is true ganja is known as a medicine, but it is used illegally, which is classified as a dangerous drug. Ganja was allowed to be used as medicine by Ayurvedic doctors. We cannot ban drugs, but we should stop abusing them.”

But today a blanket of silence has fallen over the vociferous protest they had made before, though not a section or word had changed in the Act Ranil brought to make ganja cultivation legal.

Under existing laws and fanciful hopes, strict regulations have been imposed to ensure that no part of ganja plants—its seeds, its leaves, or its roots—finds its way to satisfy the demand of the local domain.

Naively, the Ayurvedic Commissioner Dr. Dhammika Abeygunawardena says, “Investors must enclose the ganja cultivation site by a security fence.” When did a fence keep out coconut thieves at night? When did a fence, electrified or not, keep out wild elephants from foraging at night? When did a fence keep out rilaws from plucking coconuts at night or day?

Why should smugglers of Kerala ganja go to extraordinary lengths to bring it across the sea in boats, risking detection by patrolling naval craft, when it is easier and less risky to hop over a fence on land and take all the Lankan ganja they want?

Furthermore, the Daily Mirror reports, “Dr. Abeygunawardena emphasised, Investors must arrange for a Special Task Force and police protection for the premises.”

When have foreign investors been given the authority to order the STF and Police to come and protect their property when not even a citizen of this country under a death threat can order police or STF protection as an automatic right but has to seek it from defence authorities?

It’s illegal to use ganja recreationally in Sri Lanka. The Poisons, Opium, and Dangerous Drugs Act states, “No person shall, without the licence of the Minister, sow, plant, cultivate, obtain, or have in his possession any poppy plant, coca plant, or hemp plant, or collect or have in his possession the seeds, pods, leaves, flowers, or any part of any such plant.”

It’s illegal to grow ganja in Sri Lanka, unless it is for medical purposes and grown by state-hired farmers.

Unless otherwise amended in the present law books, or they are hired by the state, which is unlikely, since the setting up of security fences and arranging police and STF protection have been left to foreign investors, local farmers who till the land and sow the seeds and reap the ganja crop, who participate in every stage of its production, irrespective of whether it is for export or not, will be engaged in criminal activities, as will be those who transport the ganja harvest to its ordered destinations.

They would be committing illegal acts and would be liable to be found guilty, unless the divine power of the almighty dollar intervenes and grants absolution to all of them.

Until that miracle happens, Lankan farmers will be forced to bear the criminal yoke to sate the legalised recreational pleasures of the Western world. It’s similar to the bonded labour of the British from India to work in the uplands and grow the tea the British loved to drink, with one important difference: those who grew the tea were free to drink it as well. It was not illegal for workers to drink what their masters drank.

The day after the Government had given approval to seven foreign investors to cultivate ganja, the Alcohol and Drug Information Centre—ADIC—voiced strong concerns over the decision to allow legal cultivation of ganja.

In a press statement issued on Thursday, ADIC Executive Director Sampath De Seram recounted that a similar proposal was previously rejected following strong opposition from the Sri Lanka Medical Association, the College of Psychiatrists, and the College of Community Physicians.

He alleged that the Deputy Minister of Investment Promotion, who had opposed the proposal while in opposition, was now promoting it in his new role. He questioned how the authorities can guarantee that ganja grown under so-called “secure cultivation” will remain within restricted zones. Especially when other banned narcotics remain accessible locally.”

ADIC also demanded evidence of an independent international feasibility study to estimate genuine foreign exchange inflows and whether Sri Lanka could compete with established producers such as China and the Netherlands.

For all the assurances that BOI gives that its ganja projects are one hundred per cent security proof, is that mere wishful thinking in a corruption-ridden country?

The country is being led down the sleazy road to instant riches, but will such wealth deliver the promised beautiful life to the people? A prostitute can make more money in an hour than a woman working a nine-to-five office job can make in a day or month.

Another shot elephant dies: One more statistic in the record bookSo another wild elephant, this time the one known as ‘Kandalama Hedakaraya’, bit the dust this week of gunshot injuries. He died by the banks of the Kandalama tank in Dambulla, where he had laid sprawled in its waters since March 30th. He was just 30. He had no ivory to give his killer, being not a tusker, nor did he have anything of value to offer. Perhaps he was repeatedly shot and left to die for the crime of foraging the fields to feed his hunger. Or reach his waterhole to slake his thirst. A valiant four-month battle by veterinary surgeons and wildlife officials failed to save him, despite the services of an ayurvedic doctor marshalled during the last stages. KANDALAMA HEDAKARAYA: File picture Soon he would be a forgotten victim in the perennial war between humans and elephants. It’s a conflict that successive governments had promised to end but never succeeded. Kandalama Hedakaraya would end up as another tombstone in the graveyard of statistics where all elephants shot and killed end up. As reported on August 5th, Lanka’s Wildlife Conservation Department has revealed alarming statistics on elephant deaths for the year, with 44 elephants shot and killed this year. According to Wildlife Conservation Director General Ranjan Marasinghe, a total of 245 elephants had died in the last seven months due to various causes. That is 35 elephants each month. The Conservation Director also revealed that last year the total number of elephant deaths stood at 388, or 32 every month. With five months to spare, that gives enough and more time for enraged farmers, for landmine layers, for train drivers, for safari hunters shooting for sport, for trappers with intent to maim, and for ivory poachers to beat last year’s average and, who knows, with any luck, even set a new record.