Ker­wyn Thomp­son

In ear­ly Oc­to­ber, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs Dr Kennedy Swarats­ingh urged the new­ly ap­point­ed Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) board to ex­plore the use of agri­cul­tur­al­ly zoned CDA lands as a med­ical cannabis hub.

His pro­pos­al echoed a grow­ing re­gion­al sen­ti­ment—that cannabis can be a le­git­i­mate en­gine for eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion, and health in­no­va­tion.

Yet, when a week lat­er, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo pre­sent­ed the 2026 na­tion­al bud­get, the Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed no fund­ing—not a sin­gle line item—to sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of a lo­cal med­ical cannabis in­dus­try. This omis­sion is strik­ing giv­en the glob­al growth of the sec­tor and the op­por­tu­ni­ties it presents for small is­land economies like ours.

Dr Swarats­ingh’s vi­sion is time­ly. With le­gal frame­works al­ready in place un­der the Cannabis Con­trol Act (2022), Trinidad & To­ba­go has a foun­da­tion on which to build. But pol­i­cy with­out in­vest­ment can­not dri­ve growth. The ab­sence of fi­nan­cial sup­port sig­nals that the state may still view cannabis as a po­lit­i­cal risk rather than an in­dus­tri­al op­por­tu­ni­ty.

In con­trast, re­gion­al coun­ter­parts such as St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Ja­maica, and Bar­ba­dos have al­ready lever­aged pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships, lab­o­ra­to­ry in­fra­struc­ture, and ex­port-ready cul­ti­va­tion projects to se­cure mil­lions in in­vest­ment.

A prop­er­ly struc­tured and well-sup­port­ed med­ical cannabis in­dus­try could al­so sig­nif­i­cant­ly strength­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s for­eign ex­change re­serves. As re­gion­al mar­kets con­tin­ue to ex­port med­ical-grade cannabis prod­ucts to Eu­rope and North Amer­i­ca, our is­land re­mains on the side­lines. Even mod­est ex­port vol­umes could in­ject mil­lions of US dol­lars in­to the econ­o­my, re­duce the strain on our lim­it­ed forex avail­abil­i­ty and stim­u­late agri­cul­tur­al in­no­va­tion across rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

This is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­place de­pen­den­cy on im­ports with ex­port-ori­ent­ed val­ue cre­ation—from cul­ti­va­tion and pro­cess­ing to well­ness tourism and re­search part­ner­ships.

The 2026 na­tion­al bud­get al­lo­cat­ed a record TT$8.214 bil­lion to the health sec­tor, the sec­ond high­est af­ter ed­u­ca­tion, fo­cus­ing on hos­pi­tal up­grades, med­ical equip­ment, and dig­i­tal health records. How­ev­er, none of the Bud­get doc­u­ments, PSIP sum­maries, or min­is­te­r­i­al break­downs ref­er­enced cannabis reg­u­la­tion, lab­o­ra­to­ry cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, or re­lat­ed in­dus­tri­al projects.

Sim­i­lar­ly, there was no men­tion of fund­ing for the Cannabis Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty or re­sources for agri­cul­tur­al di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in­to high-val­ue crops like cannabis. In short: the mon­ey is flow­ing to health—but not to heal­ing in­dus­tries. This in­ac­tion comes at a cost. The glob­al med­i­c­i­nal cannabis mar­ket is pro­ject­ed to sur­pass US$60 bil­lion by 2030. With ide­al grow­ing con­di­tions, Trinidad & To­ba­go could po­si­tion it­self as a re­gion­al leader in phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal-grade cul­ti­va­tion and ex­trac­tion.

Fail­ing to act now means miss­ing key ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties and job cre­ation po­ten­tial. Pass­ing laws with­out fund­ing en­force­ment and over­sight bod­ies in­vites gaps in qual­i­ty as­sur­ance and com­pli­ance.

A pa­per frame­work with­out op­er­a­tional sup­port risks dam­ag­ing the coun­try’s cred­i­bil­i­ty in in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets. Mean­while, en­tre­pre­neurs, farm­ers, and in­vestors re­quire clar­i­ty. Bud­get si­lence sig­nals hes­i­ta­tion—and hes­i­ta­tion re­pels cap­i­tal.

Be­yond job cre­ation and so­cial re­form, a thriv­ing cannabis sec­tor could al­so help re­vi­talise T&T’s tourism in­dus­try and bol­ster the na­tion’s for­eign ex­change re­serves. By de­vel­op­ing and ex­port­ing high-val­ue med­i­c­i­nal cannabis prod­ucts, the coun­try could at­tract in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors in­ter­est­ed in well­ness tourism and med­ical re­treats. This ap­proach would gen­er­ate steady US dol­lar in­flows from both prod­uct ex­ports and in­creased tourist spend­ing, sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty and less­en­ing the na­tion’s de­pen­dence on the en­er­gy sec­tor.

To tru­ly un­lock the po­ten­tial of the med­ical cannabis in­dus­try, the gov­ern­ment must align pol­i­cy with bud­getary ac­tion. This means:

• Es­tab­lish­ing a Cannabis Reg­u­la­to­ry Au­thor­i­ty (es­ti­mat­ed at US$1–2 mil­lion) to man­age li­cens­ing, in­spec­tion, and com­pli­ance;

• Fund­ing ac­cred­it­ed lab­o­ra­to­ry in­fra­struc­ture (US$3–5 mil­lion) for test­ing and ex­port readi­ness; and

• Cre­at­ing pi­lot cul­ti­va­tion and re­search sites, par­tic­u­lar­ly on CDA lands.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, grow­er train­ing pro­grammes and tran­si­tion grants could em­pow­er small farm­ers, while pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships can at­tract in­no­va­tion and in­ter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion.

An of­ten-over­looked el­e­ment of cannabis reg­u­la­tion is law en­force­ment align­ment. For a le­git­i­mate cannabis in­dus­try to thrive, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and all branch­es of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices must be en­gaged and ed­u­cat­ed. Prop­er train­ing is es­sen­tial to dis­tin­guish be­tween il­le­gal black-mar­ket op­er­a­tions and li­censed, reg­u­lat­ed en­ti­ties. This col­lab­o­ra­tion is key to re­duc­ing il­lic­it trade while en­sur­ing the law­ful in­dus­try op­er­ates trans­par­ent­ly and safe­ly.

Build­ing a co­op­er­a­tive frame­work be­tween reg­u­la­tors, se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, and cannabis busi­ness­es will fos­ter a cli­mate of trust, com­pli­ance, and ac­count­abil­i­ty—pro­tect­ing both pub­lic safe­ty and in­vestor con­fi­dence. For cannabis to be de­vel­oped as a ma­jor na­tion­al in­dus­try, the gov­ern­ment should cre­ate a trans­par­ent im­ple­men­ta­tion plan, out­line bud­gets for each min­istry, in­volve stake­hold­ers from health, agri­cul­ture, tourism and ed­u­ca­tion, and set clear dead­lines for li­cens­ing, re­search, and ex­port.

Dr Swarats­ingh’s sug­ges­tion re­gard­ing CDA lands is a sol­id foun­da­tion, but land alone isn’t enough. The sec­tor now re­quires strong poli­cies and prop­er fund­ing to tru­ly thrive. T&T has de­crim­i­nalised, leg­is­lat­ed, and de­bat­ed cannabis for years. Yet the 2026 bud­get’s si­lence speaks vol­umes. The na­tion stands at a cross­roads: ei­ther lead the Caribbean in med­i­c­i­nal cannabis in­no­va­tion—or watch oth­ers reap the re­wards. Re­al lead­er­ship re­quires in­vest­ment, col­lab­o­ra­tion and courage. The time to act is now.