We suspect that preoccupation with campaigning for the coming general election has affected the urgency with which Parliament should deal with its routine work of making and amending legislation. Hence, our editorial commentary last week about the foot-dragging of the Public Accounts Committee in dealing with reports of the Auditor General which it has had for the past two fiscal years.

The foot-dragging goes back even further. As we reported yesterday, there is little prospect that the present Parliament will get around to dealing with recommendations on ganja usage.

The report of a National Commission on Ganja, headed by Professor Barry Chevannes, made recommendations which went to a parliamentary committee and gave rise to a subsequent resolution which has been sitting on the table for legislative action since 2004.

The recommendations would require amendment of laws, for example, that would decriminalise the drug for private personal use in specific quantities by adults; as well as for use as a sacrament for religious purposes, obviously for members of the Rastafarian faith.

It may well be that whatever legislative action may be taken can have far-reaching consequences at local and international levels. Decades of illegality ascribed to smoking a spliff or simply growing and trafficking the weed would have to be re-examined in terms of what may have to be adjusted in some rural farming communities. It could be that growing the weed could cease to be illegal and take some place alongside traditional crops.

The criminal aspect of ganja is long established to the point where linkages with international drug rings have been exposed. The instances where metal containers welded to the hulls of trading ships suggest a level of criminal organisation combining ingenuity and sophisticated planning; or, indeed, drug mules risking their lives as human conduits in the trade.

All of which are dangerous aspects of ganja which have been part of the crime scene that continues to plague the nation.

A brighter side is reflected in the national commission report which includes the recommendation for a cannabis research agency to be established to ascertain what some experts claim are the extensive medicinal properties of ganja; this even in the face of some claims that its addictive properties may rival those of the traditional hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

In recent weeks, there have been cable television reports of sophisticated cultivation of marijuana discovered in North America inside of reconfigured residential mansions exposed by law enforcement agencies. The crops are grown with high-tech facilities to produce a more powerful drug earning millions for organised crime rings.

Such a development provokes the wry observation that those crops in suburban mansions would devalue our own remote ganja plantations.

Given the complexities of rewriting the rules for a new approach to ganja in Jamaica, we do not expect that the present Parliament will have time to undertake what needs to be done.New legislation must establish a whole new paradigm for the weed.

Whatever is achieved will have social, cultural, and international implications as part of the agenda for the new Parliament.