St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves is calling for a collective Caribbean approach regarding the trade and other benefits of marijuana cultivation in the region. Gonsalves raised the idea of banana-producing countries in the Caribbean looking to cultivate marijuana as a more productive crop. He said after 50 years of commercial banana production some islands had become disaster-prone and that it was time the region carried out some serious research on marijuana as a viable regional commercial product. (See also: PM Gonsalves pushes ganja as replacement for bananas)