Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

It has now been more than five years since cannabis was de­crim­i­nalised in Trinidad and To­ba­go on De­cem­ber 23, 2019. Dur­ing that time, the de­vel­op­ment of the for­mal med­i­c­i­nal cannabis sec­tor, to be over­seen by the long-pend­ing T&T Cannabis Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty, stag­nat­ed be­fore it ever tru­ly be­gan. De­spite the pas­sage of the Cannabis Con­trol Bill 2020 in April 2022, the leg­is­la­tion which em­pow­ers the Au­thor­i­ty, that body is yet to be es­tab­lished.

The med­i­c­i­nal cannabis in­dus­try, en­vi­sioned by for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, was put on the back-burn­er by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, and it re­mains to be seen if Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and/or who­ev­er is elect­ed, come April 28, will change that ap­proach.

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young hasn’t men­tioned cannabis from the plat­form so far.

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day and its San Fer­nan­do East can­di­date Ken­rick Ser­rette, in March, called for the leg­is­la­tion ac­com­pa­ny­ing the Con­trol Bill to be put in­to ef­fect, while the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress hasn’t made too many pro­nounce­ments on the cannabis in­dus­try apart from sig­nalling its in­tent to in­crease the le­gal age of cannabis use to 25-years-old, should it win the elec­tions.

While the for­mal cannabis in­dus­try re­mains un­event­ful, there are cannabis en­tre­pre­neurs in com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try mak­ing their move to de­vel­op the bud­ding po­ten­tial in niche mar­kets strad­dling the lines of le­gal­i­ty.

The busi­ness ven­tures range from per­son­al grow­ers bring­ing in ex­tra cash through cannabis sales to cannabis-themed events al­low­ing en­thu­si­asts to vibe to­geth­er.

One of those can­na-en­tre­pre­neurs is Quilin Achat, who is well-known in the com­mu­ni­ty for her roles with “Stay Calm, It’s a Plant,” “Ladiesof420,” and “All Man­sions of Rasta­fari.”

“Trin­Ba­go’s po­ten­tial is un­lim­it­ed in the gan­ja in­dus­try. In the raw form, we grow some of the best in the Caribbean due to our soil and cli­mate. In­door grows have per­fect­ed con­di­tions to grow in tem­per­ate cli­mates, high grades as well. In down­stream prod­ucts, I see a mix of well­ness prod­ucts, med­i­c­i­nal ap­pli­ca­tions and us­es, as well as in ca­su­al use that may even, even­tu­al­ly, over­shad­ow al­co­hol use. In Caribbean cannabis tourism, our lead­ers and ser­vice providers alike, need to have a shared vi­sion to of­fer true re­lax­ation and re­ju­ve­na­tion on our is­lands,” she said.

Achat be­lieves that the Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing too long to get the for­mal sec­tor go­ing, deny­ing what she be­lieves are le­git­i­mate eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“The lack of progress in es­tab­lish­ing a le­gal cannabis in­dus­try is a clear sign that the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion lacks vi­sion and will pur­pose­ly mit­i­gate progress un­til it is prof­itable. They de­crim­i­nalised weed covert­ly and have not done any­thing to ed­u­cate the pub­lic on its us­es and ap­pli­ca­tions. In six years, we still await a li­cens­ing body so planters can have le­gal ac­cess to seeds, and in­di­vid­u­als, le­gal herb. I look for­ward to a new gov­ern­ment that will be stead­fast in ex­plor­ing dif­fer­ent av­enues to el­e­vate the stan­dard of liv­ing here in T&T,” Achat said.

This com­ing week­end, the week­end be­fore the glob­al­ly-recog­nised cannabis homage date 4-20 (April 20), Achat will host the lat­est edi­tion of the Her­bees Awards. The awards will take place on April 12 and 13 from 2 pm to 8 pm.

Start­ed in 2022, the com­pe­ti­tion seeks to crown the “Can­napre­neur of the Year.”

The “Weed War­rior” award of­fers recog­ni­tion for the cannabis ad­vo­cates who ed­u­cate and up­lifts the lo­cal cannabis com­mu­ni­ty.

There are al­so awards for the “Bess In­door & Out­door Cannabis Grow” and “Bess Ed­i­bles.”

“It is an up­lift­ment to the cannabis com­mu­ni­ty that emerged af­ter de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion in De­cem­ber 2019 and blos­somed dur­ing the lock­down of COVID. Dur­ing a time of eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty and phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing, many young herbal­ists start­ed can­na-brands as a side hus­tle,” Achat said.

Mean­while, An­to­nia, a can­na-en­tre­pre­neur whose name was changed to pro­tect her iden­ti­ty, sells ed­i­bles—food in­fused with cannabis—to sup­ple­ment her in­come.

Her com­pa­ny even has so­cial me­dia pages.

An­to­nio es­ti­mat­ed that she makes be­tween $1,500 to $5,000 a month.

She said one of her loy­al cus­tomers is in his 60s and he us­es ed­i­bles to treat the pain re­sult­ing from a re­cent stroke.

“I love to cook. I love to bake. I would like to branch off ful­ly in­to a food busi­ness. I have a lot of cus­tomers and I have good sup­port be­cause of my knowl­edge. Where­as an­oth­er busi­ness own­er may not be com­fort­able to pro­vide an­swers to their ques­tions, they get that from me. I can ad­vise them. I am not the kind of per­son who just wants the sale. I want to know if they en­joyed the prod­uct. I need to know about any cus­tomer that I in­ter­act with be­cause I don’t want them to have some­thing strong and they have a bad ex­pe­ri­ence.

“I am not sure where we stand on the le­gal grounds. How­ev­er, I do hope in the fu­ture, they will change their minds and laws to cater to this. Cannabis is some­thing that can be con­sumed in many ways,” she said.

As con­firmed by gov­ern­ment sources, there are no stat­ed laws pro­hibit­ing the sale of cannabis with­in the de­crim­i­nalised amount of 30 grammes of flower and five grammes of resin. It is il­le­gal for any per­son to pos­sess more than the pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed amounts of cannabis.

Pos­ses­sion of cannabis flower in the amount of more than 30 grammes to 60 grammes or more than five grammes to ten grammes of resin can re­sult in a fine of up to $50,000 on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion.

The fine is up to $75,000 for cannabis flower be­tween 60 and 100 grammes; and the fine is up to $250,000 and up to five years im­pris­on­ment for pos­sess­ing more than 100 grammes of cannabis.

Each per­son is per­mit­ted to cul­ti­vate up to four plants.

Cul­ti­vat­ing more than the per­mit­ted amount can re­sult in a $750,000 fine and ten years im­pris­on­ment on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion.

It is al­so il­le­gal for peo­ple to smoke cannabis in pub­lic spaces.

It can re­sult in a $50,000 fine.