R.I.p. Dr Manley west - Canasol pioneer

Portland has produced its fair share of outstanding Jamaicans, and one of them was laid to rest on Saturday last, in the church yard in his native district of Friendship. A prior engagement kept this writer form attending the service, but it had been the talk of the area all that week, and no doubt will remain so for a while.

An alumnus of Portie's Titchfield High School, Prof. Manley West was later Professor Emeritus in the department of Pharmacology at the University of the west Indies. Beginning in the late 70s West, and Dr. Albert Lockhart, overcame loads of scepticism by successfully formulating a topical treatment (eye drop) for the degenerative disease glaucoma. The drug’s name Canasol, belied its source material, the cannabis, or ganja plant. The United States Food & Drug Administration, in its “great wisdom” has decided that Canasol – developed in 1983 and successfully used around the world – can be sold as a prescription item in the US, even though it has no demonstrable side effects.

They also developed Asmasol, another cannabis-derived pharmaceutical useful, as the name suggests in combating the respiratory disease now fairly widespread in Jamaica nad indeed many other countries.


West, was by all accounts, an assuming yet affable man, a "country gentleman" who possessed a mind sharper than many sophisticates, yet did not let his lofty status as a an academic and pioner go to his head.