Welcome To The GanjaGram
An unmistakable part of Jamaican culture is its relationship with the marijuana plant. As the world slowly progresses to a more relaxed stance, Jamaica itself is also undergoing change. Recently there has been a move to decriminalize up to two ounces of marijuana. What this means is that people can now travel with up to that amount, without it being a criminal offence. Still, there remains some confusion and I foresee more to come, but the Ganjagram app is here to remedy some of that. It’s a mobile app developed by Varun Baker and Yacub Grant in a bid to provide and translate information on the changing marijuana laws. We recently caught up with them at their office in Half Way Tree, where they showed us the full vision for Ganjagram.
When I first came across Ganjagram it seemed like this app delivered on the original promise of technology, which is to make life easier. The atmosphere around the marijuana industry both locally and abroad is riddled with misinformation and confusion that tends to be very dangerous. This is as a result of the legal connotations that are still in effect and the Ganjagram provides accurate and concise information about this.
So, talk a little bit about the app.
The app that is published and fully available on the App Store and the play store is purely informational. It really just tells people about the laws in Jamaica so that they can carry that in their pocket and have an easier time when they are here because laws have changed and people need the clarity around what’s legal and what’s not. Many people don’t realize that it’s no longer a criminal offence to carry up to two ounces of marijuana. So that’s two big handfuls of herb. It’s nice to demonstrate and tell people about that. Ganjagram is about connectivity. We see ourselves solving a real problem for people, even though we’re still in R&D mode. We going through a process of testing many different types of things. We’re not necessarily a ganja company, we’re a tech company and we provide technology that helps and benefits the emerging ganja industry here.
It’s really a deep deep rabbit hole, there’s so much to something as simple as this plant. There’s so much to learn about people who want to interact with it in different ways, because to a large extent none of this has been done. It’s new territory and for those reasons, we are in research and development mode. It does seem like a problem solver. Recently with the changes like the decriminalization of a certain amount, even that has a lot of misinformation surrounding it. Because many people believe that this means the plant is legal, which is a completely different. Yeah once you step into the legislative space the language is very important and very specific. Sometimes that doesn’t translate into the general understanding amongst common people in Jamaica. I know people who go to court for completely different reasons and they don’t understand what their lawyer or judge is saying because they are basically speaking a different language. I think it’s a very important point you made because the week it was decriminalized, a man drove into the police station with almost a hundred pounds of ganja on him asking for directions to Downtown to sell it. But he drove into the station with the understanding that ganja is now legal, and he got arrested. Very innocently, but so it’s really important to take the information from where the government has left it and kind of translate it into a way that’s easier for people to understand.
What’s your opinion on the atmosphere, as a person who’s invested in the future of the plant and how much it has to offer people? Especially with the fact of it being such a controversial topic, and even in the workplace people have to hide the fact that they use it and stuff.
Well, the atmosphere is really amazing when you really check it out. When you look at how public opinion has changed over the years when it comes to ganja and people who use it, Jamaica has come a very far way. One time people were being beaten in the streets and dragged off to jail, over this plant. So I think there still is a very big and very real stigma around ganja that I don’t think is going away very quickly. But at the same time, when you look at the general atmosphere and compare where we are now to even five years ago, it’s an improvement. I’m seeing a lot more reference in popular culture to ganja and it seems according to recent polls and statistics people stance on it is one of more acceptance than it previously was. So that is the general trend I’m looking at and it gives me encouragement that a lot is possible right now.
Tell me a little about the story of how you started with the co-founder and how Ganjagram came to be.
We really started out with this as a concept and we realized it has a lot of potential, it can do a lot for a lot of people and in particular, the energy came from and continues as a means to create wealth for groups of people who are threatened to be marginalized by the said industry. Typically, if we look at coffee farmers, sugar cane and many of the other things that Jamaica produces have had a raw deal when comes to this type of thing. So Ganjagram aims to be inclusive of these people and set up something that one day can be looked at as fair trade ganja. In other words, our technology may provide the ability to, in some sense cut out the middleman, who right now appears to be the one who stands to make most of the profits. In the bigger context of cannabis, there are big corporations and the medical marijuana industry that are backed by big bucks and are really poised to take control of the economics around this thing. So we are aimed at levelling the playing field and keep the wealth generated from this type of activity, in the communities that are actually producing them and have been for decades. I also feel like the relationship between the farmer and the person who wants to interact with it, in Jamaica, it’s a part of the culture for that relationship to be good. So that the individual can be knowledgeable about what they are consuming and where it’s coming from. It goes across the board too, with food and things of that nature. Absolutely.
That’s another huge thing that Ganjagram aims to bring to the table, which is just information. Information about, where things are sourced from, the input and thought that go into them. Honestly, this is where Jamaica can really find its niche, not so much just about the plant, but how it’s grown. It’s all about the atmosphere, the hill it’s grown on, why it’s special, the soil is super critical. Jamaica has an internationally renowned brand that is specific to ganja because of this, so we need to understand this and tap into it. I even want to get scientific about it, so we’re collecting a lot of data and making this data available as a resource to even the farmers themselves. So that we can be learning and getting better at our methods and know why we use them. So yea Ganjagram really works as a technology, as an enabler or catalyst to move things along. But in terms of my Cofounder Yacob Grant, we really came together as a team and what we do as operational managers for this company is to build this network. Like I said we’re in R&D mode, we’re doing a lot of product development, closed sessions where we look at developing the Ganjagram experience and so on.
A big question that’s up in the air right now, for example, is people will say ‘Boy we love Jamaica, but the herb is just not strong enough. It’s not that 30% THC that I need to just knock me out.” We want to understand, is this really where the market is? Or is the soccer moms who want an introduction to it? Because it’s not quite defined yet. Who is really the target audience? What do they look for? What’s really important to them?
Photos by Jik Reuben
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