Say no to tobacco, say yes to Lanka Ganja
Grow more grass to earn a few dollars more: Health Minister
Twenty Twenty presidential hopeful, birthday boy Gotabaya Rajapaksa may have felt somewhat uncomfortable when a monk, no less a personage than the Anunayaka of the Asgiriya Chapter the Venerable Vendaruwe Upali, whom he had invited along with a retinue of other senior monks to his residence for an alms- giving ceremony to celebrate his 69th birthday on the 21st of June, unwittingly stamped his forehead with Hitler’s anti clockwise Swastika and bade him take over power with the aid of the military.
It was a birthday blessing Gotabaya Rajapakse could well have done without.
For when the venerable monk, perhaps, with the best of intentions, said in his sermon televised nationwide that night that: “You are known as a Hitler and you should use the military and take power,” Gotabaya would have immediately surmised the immense damage that would be caused to his bid or Lanka’s top job.
As he said on Tuesday to the gathered media, after emerging from the FCID office where he had been questioned for two hours over the alleged misuse of public finance to erect a memorial to his late father, that he understood the full import of the monk’s blessings, and that only lesser mortals who did not possess ‘pragna’ or true understating would have failed to grasp it meanings, he would have realised that the ‘Hitler’ slur cast even with good faith would indeed have long- term consequences which would serve to darken the promise of his bloom even before the flower’s dawn.
He already faced two hurdles before he could step foot in the river Rubicon. The first concerned his dual citizenship which he had to renounce before being able to contest the Presidency of Lanka as the 19th Amendment to the Lankan Constitution dictated. Even though willin’ to do so, the hitch was whether the United States Government would allow him to do so. As stated in the Sunday Punch two weeks ago, renunciation was no unilateral matter but a two- way street. Unless Uncle Sam wished to dance the tango with him and agreed to free him from US bondage to pursue his quest to win the Lankan presidency without the legal encumbrance that prevents him now, it remained in the American Government’s hands to delay the procedure beyond 2020 and thus buckle his presidential bid.
The second hurdle was that the Pohottuwa has still not chosen him as the presidential candidate for the twenty twenty presidential election. The blessings lay in his elder brother former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s hands. And he had still not made his choice.
Three Sunday’s ago, the outgoing US Ambassador had made a courtesy call at the residence of the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa to bid him farewell. Thereat he is alleged to have stated that neither the United States Government nor the European nations would welcome the prospect of Gotabaya contesting the forthcoming presidential hus-
Along with his predecessor at the Ministry of Health, the present Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne has been at the forefront of banning cigarette smoke from fouling Lanka’s pristine air. And, together with President Sirisena, has vowed to do so by the year 2020 in accordance with the government’s general policy and practice to ban everything it considers reprehensible with scant regard to the impact such peremptory bans have on the social and economic climate.
One such farming industry facing such a ban is tobacco cultivation. And done on the grounds to protect the nation’s health.
About 200,000 farmers are directly involved in tobacco cultivation, according to Minister Bathiudeen, Importation of cigarettes, and tobacco also will be banned from 2020. Around 500,000 are employed in this sector directly and indirectly. The ban will affect the livelihood of more than 700,000. But no matter. Health comes first. Even though there is still no scientific medical evidence that cigarette smoking causes cancer or is directly linked to heart attacks.
But not to worry. A study by some outfit called the Green Space Consultancies recommended this week that crops such as Okra should serve as a suitable substitute for these tobacco farmers so that their high profit margins reaped from tobacco cultivation shall continue to flow non stop and shall bring positive benefits to the exports sector as well in its wake.
But what they also proposed was that instead of an immediate ban on tobacco cultivation, the farmers should be afforded a grace period of four years to enable tobacco cultivators to make a gradual transition to growing bandakka.
Green Space Consultancies’ founder Dr. Chathura Rodrigo said, “This is indeed a great opportunity for both the tobacco cultivator who will be diversifying into other crops and for the proprietor as well. Tobacco farming is carried out in an out- grower system and is used for the value chain process. This will significantly help them transition into other cash crops, especially export crops. Tobacco farmers won’t succeed by farming tings. Unlike the western European nations which could only express their opinion against Gotabaya’s candidacy, the US Government had a stranglehold on the matter. They had the power to delay Gotabaya’s renunciation of US dual citizenship for well over three years or even more. And that would prevent Gotabaya from contesting the elections this time around.
Added to this was Mahinda Rajapaksa’s comment in this Thursday’s Daily Mirror where asked on the prospect of Gotabaya being chosen, he stated: “I will not decide it on my own. When I travel across the length and breadth of this country, I gauge public opinion. I travel in the country more than any other leader does. I am getting public opinion as a result. I will take it into account. Also, the JO is there. We will meet at the right time and decide on someone, the best-suited to stand up to the government’s candidature. They say he is a suitable candidate. Not that, he is the chosen candidate.”
And when asked ‘How do you see the US administration under President Donald Trump?
he replied: “whoever comes to US presidential office, there is no major change in the US policies. Their foreign policy is, more or less, the same. “
Thus the first hurdle has an international dimension. The second is more domestic. That is the dilemma that’s facing the Pohottuwa Party Gotabaya intends to contest from. And it is this.
On Monday, speaking to the media, Gotabaya Rajapaksa said that he had not been invited by the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa to contest the election. But if he was nominated to contest the next presidential election, he would renounce his US citizenship and he would be able to do so within two months. crops for the local market as that is already being done and additional farmers entering the local market would flood the market with excess supply, further dropping the value of the product. They must look into cultivating export crops.”
If the observations and recommendations of the Green Space Consultancies report are accepted by the government, a further grace period of four years will be granted to the tobacco cultivators. If not it will be curtains for them in a couple of years time; and the final drag of the puff for Lanka’s smokers. Not to forget, of course, the death knell rung to herald the demise of the Ceylon Tobacco Company, the revenues of which from cigarette sales contribute in the main to minimise the budget deficit. Its contribution to the Government Exchequer through Excise taxes for the first quarter of 2017 was Rs. 19.7 billion.
But not to worry. The Health Ministry has recommended a substitute to replace tobacco, a substitute, they say, which will immeasurably enrich the Treasuries coffers and provide gainful employ- Therein lies the rub.
For all his confidence that he would be able to renounces US dual citizenship within two months and be eligible to contest the hustings, can the Pohottuwa afford to believe in his optimism and nominate him as their chosen candidate? What if the US Government does not agree to his renunciation on the basis that the procedure of renunciation must run its course and delay its grant. Wouldn’t that be a major loss of face for the Pohottuwa leadership that they had fielded a non-starter and thus shouldn’t that give them pause whether they would end up with egg on their mugs?
It’s a double dilemma for both parties. For the Pohottuwa to have their noses rubbed in the dust by holding him out as their candidate only to find he had failed to divest himself of his US citizenship as demanded by the constitution and upheld by the Lankan Supreme Court after the five bench unanimous judgment they delivered in Geetha’s dual citizenship case which stripped her of her parliamentary seat?
The same dilemma must haunt Gotabaya. What if he announces his intention to renounces his US citizenship now and the US Government grants his wish but the Pohottuwa party nominates someone else in his stead? He would have lost his US citizenship and face the prospect of being banned from ever setting foot on US soil even on a tourist visa for Uncle Sam does not take kindly to being slapped on his face by one renouncing prized citizenship others would give their right arms to obtain. For as the Immigration and Nationality Act of the USA states, “former U.S. citizens would be required to obtain a visa to travel to the United States or show that they are eligible for admission pursuant to the terms of the Visa Waiver Program. If unable to qualify for a visa, ment for forlorn farmers and possibly bring a whole host of new cultivators who have never held a mammoty in their hands. Plus, who knows, the crop may even topple Ceylon Tea from its present pedestal as the biggest export crop.
Ceylon Ganja. Or Lanka Ganja. Also commonly known as Cannabis, Marijuana, Dope, Pot, Good Giggles, Green Goddess, Rainy Day Woman, Reefer, Happy Cigarette, Hashish, Whackytobacky, Weed Or Grass, to list a few of the euphemistic names to describe it. But doesn’t ganja by any other name stink the same?
This Monday the Minister of Health Rajitha Senaratne held a press conference to announce the news that he government is set to give the all clear for farmers to grow ganja – a crop banned from British days. He said that he had taken a leaf from the Canadian Government.
The Canadian Government became the second G7 member to legalize the use of cannabis eleven days ago on June 20th. This Sunday morning the law comes to effect and Canadians can purchase the drug without a prescription over the counter from the nearest corner shop pharmacy for recreational use. The first G7 member to legalize the weed was Britain.
The Health Minister said: “Since the United Kingdom and Canada have lifted the ban imposed for Cannabis, Sri Lanka will also be allowed to grow cannabis for medical purposes, export the production. We can earn millions of dollars.”
Addressing a media conference held in Colombo on Monday he said that a cabinet paper had been presented to cultivate cannabis with the assistance of armed forces.
Initially, around 100 acres of cannabis will be cultivated.
But, of course, its use will be strictly limited to medical purposes, he declared.
But, isn’t it the case, Mr. Minister, that legalizing the cultivation of ganja in Lanka will lead to its use as a recreation drug? That its leaf will flow to the local market, even though it is only intended for medical use? And a country already fast becoming a nation of druggies will not have to worry about police raids on drug dens puffing the legal home grown Abing?
The minister’s campaign against cigarette smoking is admirable. His promotion of ganja is. however, paradoxical.
As addictive as cigarette smoking may be, there’s no record known of anyone robbing or killing for a fag. Drugs on the other hand are substances well known for the health problems they cause to the users and for the social problems they cause to the community.
The minister also remarked that the western cold is not conducive to its growth and that therefore Lanka Ganja would have a ready export market and that ganja grows best in warm climates and will flourish on Lankan soil. So does the coca plant.
What next? Grow the cocaine plant and make Colombo rival the Colombian drug lords?