The Ja­maica gov­ern­ment says it is putting in place mea­sures aimed at do­ing much eas­i­er busi­ness with­in the med­i­c­i­nal cannabis in­dus­try.

In­dus­try, In­vest­ment and Com­merce Min­is­ter, Aubyn Hill, said ef­forts will be made to en­sure that the Ja­maican mar­ket has all the med­i­c­i­nal cannabis it needs.

“Un­der the In­ter­na­tion­al Nar­cotics Con­trol Board (IN­CB), which is a prod­uct of the Unit­ed Na­tions Sin­gle Con­ven­tion Treaty of 1961, we will seek to en­sure that the Ja­maican mar­ket has all the med­i­c­i­nal cannabis prod­ucts that it needs and, there­fore, does not need to im­port any med­i­c­i­nal cannabis. We will con­tin­ue, of course, to keep in line with our treaty oblig­a­tion.

“We are go­ing to tight­en the arrange­ments we have. One of the things we have to do is to make sure that the Sta­tis­ti­cal In­sti­tute of Ja­maica (STATIN) works with us to ar­rive at what the mar­ket size is be­cause that’s a very im­por­tant fea­ture of the IN­CB, with which we’re work­ing to make sure we stay in line,” he told re­porters.

Hill said that the mat­ter of how the small-scale tra­di­tion­al cannabis grow­er is treat­ed is be­ing ex­am­ined and that one of the min­istries has been look­ing at the al­ter­na­tive de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme aimed at pre­vent­ing and elim­i­nat­ing the il­lic­it cul­ti­va­tion of mar­i­jua­na and chan­nelling the process through le­gal streams.

“We’ve done a rough pi­lot be­fore, and we’ve learned some things from it, but we are go­ing back to Cab­i­net to have about 16 com­mu­ni­ties in­volved, in­clud­ing about 128 farm­ers. These are small-scale and tra­di­tion­al farm­ers,” Hill said, com­ment­ing al­so on the is­sue of high fees with­in the sec­tor.

“I find them to be a dis­in­cen­tive. The Prime Min­is­ter said to fix it, so I am go­ing to fix it. It does not make sense right now when peo­ple do not have the cash flow to buy the ba­sic stuff, to even hire peo­ple, that we are go­ing to say, pay an­oth­er US$3,000.

“I do not think the fees should be list­ed in the US; the Ja­maican dol­lar is our of­fi­cial cur­ren­cy, so we want to change that.

“Right now, for the first two years, while you are plant­i­ng and try­ing to get some mon­ey to­geth­er and grow your plants… we’re not go­ing to charge you any fees for that. Those things we’re look­ing at and mak­ing sure the gov­ern­ment can switch around what now is a dis­in­cen­tive, in­to re­mov­ing it and mak­ing it much eas­i­er for peo­ple to come in,” he added.

Hill told re­porters that the mat­ter has to go to Cab­i­net first for de­lib­er­a­tion and con­sid­er­a­tion.

“It’s a po­si­tion that I’m go­ing to take and… that rule should be in for five years. When you come in, whether you come in day one or the last day of the fifth year, you will get a two-year pe­ri­od over which you get a chance to build your busi­ness with­out these fees”.

He al­so ad­dressed the is­sue of ex­port­ing med­i­c­i­nal cannabis to oth­er coun­tries, while men­tion­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of trade mis­sions.

“We can­not sit here and wait for mar­kets to come. Ger­many has just changed its rule; it is time maybe for us to go and look, but I do not want to go and look alone. We’ll have to go and find mar­kets for our prod­uct, but al­so, we have to make arrange­ments in Ja­maica with­in the law,” he told re­porters.

KINGSTON, Ja­maica, Apr 14, CMC

CMC/fg/ir/2023