The government of St. Kitts-Nevis may be following in the footsteps of others in the region announcing recently that it is considering granting licenses to cannabis companies.
According to a government release Cabinet met on November 18 and “is considering commercial ventures which could see the extraction of oils from the cannabis plant”.
The release further informed that Cabinet is also considering further work of the Marijuana Core Committee, which is expected to submit a report by mid-December 2019.
The government did not provide any other details about the possibility of approving commercial cannabis cultivation in the federation, such as how many companies’ bids are being considered and what countries the interest is coming from.
This comes as several countries in the region are making the move to capitalize on the mainstream legalization of marijuana for recreational and medicinal purposes in countries such as the US and Canada.
Medicinal marijuana is a multi-million-dollar industry and establishing a cannabis industry could mean big bucks for the small islands.
In September 2018 a medical marijuana brand established in Jamaica sent the first-ever shipment of medical cannabis from Jamaica to Canada for analytical testing.
In July St. Vincent and the Grenadines approved the islands’ first-ever licenses to commercially cultivate, develop and export medical marijuana products, ten were approved for companies with foreign interests and 24 to local cultivators. The government there recently revealed it has earned EC $15 million dollars already in licensing fees from the medical cannabis industry.
In August 2019 a law was introduced in the Barbados House of Assembly to establish the legal foundation for a local medical marijuana industry.
In November the Antigua and Barbuda government announced that a London-based medicinal cannabis company has been approved for a medicinal cannabis Dispensary license in Antigua and Barbuda.
Trinidad & Tobago has announced a possible interest in the industry and the necessary legislation ready. Dominica and Grenada are also looking at decriminalization and the medical cannabis industry.