NARIS­SA FRAS­ER

Af­ter more than a decade of cre­at­ing a move­ment to help re­move the stig­ma around cannabis use, lo­cal en­tre­pre­neur Quilin “Em­press Q” Achat and her brand, Stay Calm It’s a Plant, are re­ceiv­ing in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion, of­fi­cial­ly se­cur­ing a nom­i­na­tion for the 2026 Cana­di­an Cannabis Tourism Awards.

Launched in 2012, Stay Calm It’s a Plant be­gan as an ac­tivism and ed­u­ca­tion­al dri­ve to spread the mes­sage about the ben­e­fits of mar­i­jua­na. Achat re­called start­ing off by sim­ply sell­ing T-shirts and oth­er mer­chan­dise with the mes­sage.

“Gan­ja was still crim­i­nalised and still very much taboo, so the (slo­gan) came as a mes­sage to have peo­ple think­ing of the herb as not a drug but a plant,” she told Guardian Me­dia. “Some­times I would even go to High Street in San Fer­nan­do or Port-of -Spain and give out fly­ers teach­ing peo­ple what cannabis is and how it can be used.”

Over the years, the move­ment has ex­pand­ed and now hosts the an­nu­al Her­bees Awards, which high­light what she calls “can­napre­neurs” in the coun­try, and al­so sells in­fused oils and but­ter.

“We have been trav­el­ling the Caribbean and get­ting the word out there about what T&T is do­ing even though it’s just de­crim­i­nalised here. We’re still heav­i­ly in­vest­ed in the de­vel­op­ment of a gan­ja in­dus­try in the Caribbean.”

In 2019, mar­i­jua­na was de­crim­i­nalised in T&T, al­low­ing peo­ple to be in pos­ses­sion of up to 30 grammes and grow up to four plants on their prop­er­ty. Al­so a mem­ber of the Rasta­fari com­mu­ni­ty, Achat said that since then, the pub­lic has be­come “more open” when it comes to their in­ter­est in the herb. “And not just recre­ation­al us­ages but as pre­ven­ta­tive med­ica­tion as well.”

When she learnt the brand had been nom­i­nat­ed for In­ter­na­tion­al Cannabis Pi­o­neer at the 2026 Cana­di­an Cannabis Tourism Awards, she was elat­ed. She is one of two re­gion­al nom­i­nees, with the oth­er be­ing Toke and Tour of Ja­maica. She com­ment­ed un­der the an­nounce­ment post on In­sta­gram, say­ing, “Ho­n­oured to rep­re­sent the Caribbean.” A to­tal of five brands were nom­i­nat­ed.

“I’m re­al­ly proud and ho­n­oured to be nom­i­nat­ed along­side the oth­ers,” she said. “All the work we’ve been do­ing for the past 14 years feel valid and the nom­i­na­tion feels like a forth­com­ing re­al­i­ty that hope­ful­ly soon, T&T would see the need to have a le­galised cannabis in­dus­try. That should be part of what we have to of­fer.”

She re­called St Vin­cent and the Grenadines launch­ing its CannaB­liss Fes­ti­val, which called on re­gion­al sup­port­ers to vis­it to see what their in­dus­try is be­ing built on, as well as the op­por­tu­ni­ties in the coun­try. “The Caribbean is­lands are the prime place to come and ful­ly en­joy gan­ja in our en­vi­ron­ment, our beach­es … We have a lot of po­ten­tial for cu­rat­ed events.” She em­pha­sised that le­gal­i­sa­tion is the next step for the coun­try to ben­e­fit from the thriv­ing in­dus­try.

The awards will be held on Sep­tem­ber 26 at Ni­a­gara Falls in On­tario, Cana­da.