Image copyright Reuters Image caption The Bob Marley museum in central Kingston was Barack Obama's first stop after landing in Jamaica 
 
 Barack Obama has taken a tour of the Bob Marley museum in Jamaica after becoming the first US president to visit the country since 1982. 
 
 To the strains of the late reggae star's One Love, Mr Obama was shown around the sprawling house in Kingston that was Mr Marley's final home. 
 
 The US president said he was a fan of the musician, telling his museum guide: "I still have all the albums." 
 
 Mr Obama is in Jamaica to meet the 15-member Caribbean Community bloc. 
 
 But his first stop after landing in Kingston was the old Victorian-style house in central Kingston that Mr Marley called home between 1975 and his death in 1981. 
 
 Mr Obama spent 20 minutes in the museum, which now houses artefacts from the singer's life including gold records and his Grammy Lifetime Achievement award. 
 
 His arrival aboard Air Force One on Wednesday made him the first sitting US president to set foot in the country since Ronald Reagan visited 33 years ago. 
 
 He was greeted by Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller and the US Ambassador to Jamaica, Luis Moreno. 
 
 Mr Obama will meet representatives of the 15 countries in the Caribbean Community group on the three-day trip to Jamaica and Panama, and is expected to discuss energy and security issues. ||||| KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Opening a three-day trip to the Caribbean and Central America, President Barack Obama hopes to capitalize on mutual needs in the face of expanding Chinese influence and weakening power by Venezuela, once the energy juggernaut of the Americas. 
 
 U.S. President Barack Obama, right, accompanied by Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N,Y, walks down the steps during their arrival on Air Force One, Wednesday, April 8, 2015 at Norman Manley International Airport... (Associated Press) 
 
 U.S. President Barack Obama waves during his arrival on Air Force One, Wednesday, April 8, 2015 at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica. Obama arrived to Jamaica for a two day visit... (Associated Press) 
 
 Obama's arrival Wednesday evening in Kingston, Jamaica, was low-key compared to the excitement he stirred in the Caribbean upon his election in 2008. Greeted at the airport tarmac by dignitaries including Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, Obama slipped into a motorcade that ran through mostly quiet, empty streets. 
 
 The visit comes amid a perception that Obama's interest in the region has failed to materialize. Yet his travels — first to Jamaica, then to the Summit of the Americas in Panama — follow a year of increased attention to the region by the U.S. president. His immigration executive orders, his efforts to slow the influx of Central American minors to the U.S. border, and his diplomatic outreach to Cuba have put a foreign policy spotlight on U.S. neighbors to the south. 
 
 Obama on Thursday will meet with Simpson Miller and with other leaders in the 15-member Caribbean Community. He also plans to speak to young regional leaders in a town-hall setting, continuing a tradition of engaging new generations in foreign political and civil society institutions. 
 
 The president promptly paid tribute to the island's cultural hero, the late reggae star Bob Marley, making an unscheduled visit Wednesday night to the legendary singer's museum. He toured Marley's former home as Marley's hit "One Love" played through the building's sound system. 
 
 In the Caribbean, energy security tops Obama's agenda as the U.S. seeks to fill a potential void left by Venezuela's scaled-back oil diplomacy. Earlier this year, Vice President Joe Biden hosted prime ministers and other top officials from all Caribbean countries except Cuba at the first Caribbean Energy Security Summit in Washington. 
 
 "We, in looking at the region, saw that a number of the (Caribbean) countries had significant energy needs," said Benjamin Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser. "At the same time, the United States has significant resources, not just in terms of our own energy production, but also in our energy infrastructure, in our ability to work with countries that have formed cooperative solutions to promote energy security." 
 
 Meanwhile, China has steadily expanded its economic alliances in the Caribbean, providing much of the financing for new roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects. 
 
 "China is running away with the gold in the view of many region watchers. Its footprint is visible and obvious through its 'checkbook' diplomacy in the Caribbean," said Anthony Bryan, an international relations professor at Trinidad's campus of the University of the West Indies. The public university system serves 18 English-speaking countries and territories. 
 
 Obama's visit to Jamaica is the first by a U.S. president since President Ronald Reagan in 1982. Obama was last in the Caribbean region in 2009 when he attended the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad. His stop in Kingston comes ahead of his attendance at this year's summit of the Western Hemisphere's heads of government Friday and Saturday in Panama. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow McFadden on Twitter: http://twitter.com/dmcfadd and Kuhnhenn on http://twitter.com/jkuhnhenn ||||| KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Marijuana has been pervasive but illegal in Jamaica for decades, consumed as a medicinal herb, puffed as a sacrament by Rastafarians and sung about in the island's famed reggae music. 
 
 FILE - In this Aug. 28, 2014 file photo, legalization advocate and reggae legend Bunny Wailer smokes a pipe stuffed with marijuana during a “reasoning” session in a yard in Kingston, Jamaica. Jamaica... (Associated Press) 
 
 After many years of dialogue about the culturally entrenched drug, and emboldened by changes to drug laws in U.S. states, Jamaica's Parliament on Tuesday night gave final approval to an act decriminalizing small amounts of pot and establishing a licensing agency to regulate a lawful medical marijuana industry. 
 
 The historic amendments pave the way for a "cannabis licensing authority" to be established to deal with regulating the cultivation and distribution of marijuana for medical and scientific purposes. Both houses of Jamaica's legislature have approved the legislation. 
 
 And in a victory for religious freedom, adherents of the homegrown Rastafari spiritual movement can now freely use marijuana for sacramental purposes for the first time on the tropical island. 
 
 The law makes possession of up to 2 ounces of marijuana a petty offense that could result in a ticket but not in a criminal record. Cultivation of five or fewer plants on any premises would be permitted. 
 
 Tourists who are prescribed medical marijuana abroad will soon be able to apply for permits authorizing them to legally buy small amounts of Jamaican weed, or "ganja" as it is known locally. 
 
 Peter Bunting, the island's national security minister, said the legislation does not mean Jamaica plans to soften its stance on transnational drug trafficking or cultivation of illegal plots. Jamaica has long been considered the Caribbean's largest supplier of pot to the U.S. and regional islands. 
 
 "The passage of this legislation does not create a free-for-all in the growing, transporting, dealing or exporting of ganja. The security forces will continue to rigorously enforce Jamaican law consistent with our international treaty obligations," Bunting said in Parliament. 
 
 William Brownfield, the U.S. assistant secretary for counter-narcotics affairs, told The Associated Press days before the vote that "Jamaican law is of course Jamaica's own business, and Jamaica's sovereign decision." But he noted that the trafficking of marijuana into the U.S. remains against the law. 
 
 "We expect that Jamaica and all states party to the U.N. Drug Conventions will uphold their obligations, including a firm commitment to combating and dismantling criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking," he told AP in an email. 
 
 Debate has long raged in Jamaica over relaxing laws prohibiting ganja but previous calls to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana fizzled out because officials feared they would bring sanctions from Washington. 
 
 Jamaican officials now have high hopes that the island can become a player in the nascent medical marijuana industry, health tourism and the development of innovative pot-derived items. Local scientists already have a history of creating marijuana-derived products, such as "Canasol," which helps relieve pressure in the eyes of glaucoma patients. 
 
 Commerce Minister Anthony Hylton said the cannabis industry holds "great potential" for Jamaica, where marijuana has long been grown illegally on mountainsides and marshes. 
 
 The move by Jamaican lawmakers adds to an international trend of easing restrictions on marijuana for medical or personal use. More than 20 U.S. states allow some form of medical marijuana and last year Colorado and Washington legalized personal use. On Tuesday, Alaska became the third U.S. state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana for adults. 
 
 In the Americas, Uruguay last year became the first nation to create a legal marijuana market. In Argentina, personal possession of marijuana was decriminalized under a 2009 Supreme Court ruling that jail time for small amounts of drugs violates the country's constitution. A law in Chile permits use of medical marijuana. 
 
 Details of Jamaica's licensing authority and its hoped-for medical marijuana sector will need to be refined in coming months. But for now, Jamaican cannabis crusaders applauded the amendments. 
 
 "This is a big step in the right direction, but there's still a lot of work to do," said Delano Seiveright, director of the Cannabis Commercial and Medicinal Taskforce. 
 
 ___ 
 
 David McFadden on Twitter: : http://twitter.com/dmcfadd
– President Obama arrived in Jamaica last night, and his first stop was the Bob Marley museum, the BBC reports. Obama is the first US president to visit Jamaica since Ronald Reagan did so in 1982, and he's apparently a big Marley fan: During his 20 minutes spent touring the Victorian-style house where the musician lived from 1975 to his death in 1981, he told the guide, "I still have all the albums." The stop was an unscheduled one, the AP reports. Of course, Obama is technically in Jamaica not as a tourist, but to discuss energy and security issues with representatives of the 15-country-strong Caribbean Community group. He'll spend three days in the Caribbean and Central America. The AP notes that while there was great excitement in the region when he was first elected, Obama's arrival was greeted with "mostly quiet, empty streets," with locals having the feeling that the president's "interest in the region has failed to materialize." He has not been in the Caribbean since 2009.