For the better part of the century, marijuana (or ganja) has been used by Jamaican working-class men, women and children--not for the euphoric "high" the plant is inevitably associated with in Western minds, but as an energizer among working men, as a prophylactic or therapeutic tea by women and children and as a medicine by nearly everyone, smokers and non-smokers alike. It forms an integral part of the Jamaican cultural tradition and value system, and its use is therefore subject to and conditioned by societal expectations and reactions quite different from those attached to it in American or European contexts.

The Jamaica study, an investigation of cultural, physiological and psychological parameters of cannabis use in Jamaica, was the first medical anthropological project center on marijuana to be undertaken, and the present report of its findings is the first intensive, multidisciplinary analysis of marijuana use and user to be published. It combines field research in the natural setting and detailed clinical examinations of long-term chronic cannabis users, providing a new perspective on the age-old relationship of man and marijuana and examining current concerns about the effects of it use. The research reported in this volume is particularly valuable in illustrating that the relationship between man and marijuana is not simply pharmacological and thus helps to dispel the stereotypes and demon theories which surround marijuana use.