SHAH ALAM, March 21 — Selangor Mentri Besar Amirudin Shari dismissed a lawmaker’s proposal for medicinal marijuana cultivation in the state as irrelevant, pointing out the plant was still classed as a dangerous drug in the country.

Speaking to reporters at the sideline of the Selangor State Assembly today, Amirudin was responding to a proposal from Jeram assemblyman Mohd Shaid Rosli for a research centre for medicinal marijuana (ganja) and an export plantation in his constituency.

"I will speak more of this during my wind up speech. There are still a lot of sensitivities (regarding ganja) and ganja is still categorised as a dangerous drug. We still need a lot of study on the matter and at this moment I still don’t see it’s relevancy,” said Amirudin.

Yesterday, Mohd Shaid proposed making Selangor the world’s biggest medical marijuana producer.

He argued that compared to oil palms, the ganja plant was far more lucrative as it was capable of producing annual returns of RM9 million per acre compared to RM3,000 for the former.

However, he conceded the proposal would require extreme security measures including protecting the airspace over the area.

His proposal met with amusement and laughter from his fellow lawmakers with Ijok assemblyman Idris Ahmad cautioning the House of the ill consequences regarding a ganja plantation, especially when it comes to enforcement.