Jamaica wrestles with red tape as ganja sector grows

| 27/05/2019 | 8 Comments

Cayman News Service(CNS): The Jamaican Cannabis Licensing Authority is wrestling with the bureaucracy that has come with the change to drug laws in Jamaica, paving the way for a licensed legal medical industry, according to CLA Director Delano Seiveright. But despite the challenges, he said the industry is set to boom and the government made the right decision to press on with the legal changes. Speaking in Cayman last week at an event where members of the legal cannabis sector were pitching for investors, Seiveright said the authority had received over 600 applications since the law changed.

He admitted that the process was overly bureaucratic and there was work to be done to ensure that local farmers in Jamaica would not be pushed out of the sector, which is expected to generate many billions of dollars around the world in the coming years.

Seiveright said that the licensing regime to allow farmers to grow the plant in large quantities for medical use faces many challenges, even some cultural rejection of the drug. But on the whole he was confident that the problems would be ironed out, local producers would benefit and the medicines produced from ganja would help millions, as he encouraged investment in the sector.

The fledgling ganja industry is growing quickly and Prentice Panton, a leading local campaigner for Cayman to go further than its first steps to legalise the use of cannabis oil for medical purposes, said the sector is already so much bigger than most people realise.

He called on government to move to regulated legalisation so that this island can also become a producer and supplier and enjoy not just the health benefits of the plant but also help Caymanians reap the financial rewards.

Experts predict that within the next ten years the European market for CBC and legal cannabis products alone will be worth some $130 billion a year.

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Category: Agriculture, Business, Medical Business

Comments (8)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    This article is about early attempts at future Jamaican regulation. The CLA in Jamaica is not looking to legitimize the dangerous narco barons controlling several parishes. Ultimately, incorporating their bad guys into the conversation is going to have to be part of their industry regulation. Then they’ll have corrupt actors washing all of their other antisocial revenue lines through the Intl payments system, not just the small part that comes from ganja, and everyone will have to hold their noses and be okay with that. If you don’t see the moral problem of accepting all the other, then there’s a problem with your compass. I concede that it is less of a problem here than in Jamaica, but growing your own doesn’t regulate the plant or offer any tax revenue, which are the backbone “reasons” for legalization.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Growing your own results in significantly reduced demand for the “dangerous narco barons” to fulfill. You can sell yearly licenses to grow x amount, also. Open your mind.

      You sound like you want to have a point but are too vulnerable to falling victim to conspiracies.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Most people in the US grow much of their own now which is forcing prices down. You never know what pesticides or whatever some backwater farmer uses to grow their own. The Jams will never take over that market in the US. US people are already starting to develop their own system using technology decades ahead of any university research or backwaters farmers for that matter. Any idiot bringing some weird national pride that is coming to the US to think there is a future for them in that trade will be sadly mistaken…or will likely have their legs broken within the first week of setting up shop.

    Another opportunity missed that your half-wit criminals seize upon instead of letting smarter tech savvy people develop it without fear of being put in prison.

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    • Anonymous says:

      There’s many opportunities for a science related career in the field of quality control / screening for pesticides. Not to mention retail, agriculture, tourism, medical industries, etc which all can generate tax revenue to build schools like what Colorado has done.

      The time is now, Cayman. We’re starting to see past the big pharma, paper, tobacco and alcohol industries attempts to lobby against natural cannabis.

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    • Anonymous says:

      A decimal of 1% is not “most people”.

  3. Anonymous says:

    I long for the day that I can legally enjoy it here in my backyard instead of having to fly out.

    Take my tax money, CIG. If you allow your people to smoke cigarettes at work and buy poisionous alcohol 7 days a week, you can allow recreational use of a plant you legally recognize for medical applications.

    A lot of these bad boys around here mixed up in crime also get caught with ganja and give it a bad name as it’s so easy to sell it on the black market since *literally* thousands of Caymanians enjoy the herb. Allow them to grow it themselves and there won’t be a reason to try and smuggle 900 lbs of the plant in with guns at once!

    Minimum wage in Jamaica is 200 usd a month. Good luck stopping smugglers who can make half a year salary in a night.

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  4. Anonymous says:

    Consider that there are at least three western parishes under state of emergency in Jamaica. None of that stops with legalization. The bad people, and their supply chain, are fully entrenched, and don’t suddenly cease to exist. Quite the opposite, as Canada is now finding. They flood the market with cheaper goods. These are bad people that have been dealing in this realm with corrupt officials and they do not typically surrender or go away, and they have product to move. At the end of the USA Prohibition in 1933, the mobsters didn’t go away either. Novice startups, owned or run by get-rich-quick Canadians (or Caymanians) are already over their heads if they plan to go head to head with people comfortable taking lives and operating well-outside the law.

    http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20190527/gun-heist-19-firearms-numerous-rounds-ammunition-stolen-mobay-security

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    • Anonymous says:

      “the criminal black market is so established that we should continue the failed war on drugs which throws money at a problem instead of takes back control through regulation”

      Legalize personal growing here and there won’t be any incentive to smuggle it like what the other commentor said. Cheaper goods?! Do you even know how much a smuggled lb of the tree can sell for these days??

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