Multimillion-dollar ganja cultivation project to begin on UTech lands in two weeks

A group of investors is set to pump approximately half-a-million US dollars into Jamaica's first legal marijuana cultivation project.

The multimillion-dollar investment by Ganja Lab LLC is expected to begin in two weeks on lands located at the University of Technology (UTech) in St Andrew.

It comes months after the government enacted changes to the Dangerous Drug Act that allows for ganja cultivation and the development of a medical marijuana industry.

Speaking yesterday at a ground breaking ceremony, Chairman of Ganja Labs, Balram Vaswani, said the project will be done in two phases.

Vaswani says the project is not for commercial purposes as the Cannabis Licensing Authority has not yet issued rules and regulations for the sale of marijuana in the retail trade.

Instead, Vaswani says research will be carried out under the project to find some of the medicinal benefits of marijuana.

As part of the pilot project, Ganja Labs said it will grow 28 strains of marijuana under the same conditions with the same inputs to help determine the cost of growing one pound of weed under the same conditions.

Vaswani said the plants will be grown under strict security arrangements, with every room being tracked by cameras that will be accessible to the Ministry of National Security and the University of Technology around-the-clock.