A foreign investor is expressing concern that Jamaica’s delay in establishing a medical ganja industry is providing other countries with the advantage to maximise from the opportunities to cement themselves in the export trade.

Florida-based investor Mark Santiago, who has applied to the Cannabis Licensing Authority for a licence to operate a vertically integrated ganja business, feels that the disunity in communication is a major hold-up in the industry.

“I believe that the foot dragging is because of our lack of communication,” Santiago argued.

He was speaking to the Jamaica Observer at the MoBay Invest Conference put on by the Montego Bay Chamber of Conference at the Montego Bay Convention Centre on Friday.

Recently, Canada’s Health Ministry, Health Canada, issued export permits to a licensed Canadian firm for medical cannabis oils, which received initial purchase orders for distribution to both Australia and the Cayman Islands for pharmacy dispensing, triggering more concern that Jamaica is too slow out of the blocks in getting the industry up and running.

Cayman Islands Governor Helen Kilpatrick approved a bill that amends the Misuse of Drugs Bill 2016, allowing cannabis oil to be imported and sold for medicinal purposes.

Lawmakers had unanimously approved the amendment in October last year during the last session of the Legislative Assembly.

The company, CanniMed Therapeutics, is a Canadian-based, international plant biopharmaceutical company and a leader in the Canadian medical cannabis industry, with 15 years of pharmaceutical cannabis cultivation experience.

“Why Canada has inked the deal with Grand Cayman and not Jamaica is ... I see other governments have fluid communications, fluid movements, and the stigma of medical cannabis does not exist nearly as much as it exists here in Jamaica,” Santiago argued.

“So we are currently experiencing a lack of unity between a few of the different parties that need to be in congruence in order for Jamaica to be an international ganja-exporting force.”

Meanwhile, Minister of Industry, Commerce and Agriculture and Fisheries, Karl Samuda gave a strong signal that the Government is looking to develop a medical ganja industry at a recent American Chamber of Commerce Breakfast Forum at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston.

“Cannabis resides in my ministry and notwithstanding anything that you might have read or heard about the use of cannabis for development of medicinal products, it is going to be a reality. Cannabis can be used in Jamaica to create medicinal products that can earn us money that can assist us to bring about relief to many of the suffering people, not only in Jamaica, not only in the region, but in the world. and I would love to know that Jamaica is seen as a centre of research in the use and application of certain strains of cannabis in the world, and we will be promoting that, have no fear about that,” Samuda said.

Cannabis law reform advocate Delano Seiveright recently raised concern about a perceived conflict of interest in respect of Chief Medical Officer, Dr Winston De La Haye which he said is limiting Jamaica’s development of the sector.

Seiveright recently expressed “suspicion” about Dr De La Haye’s interpretation of a National Council for Drug Abuse (NCDA) report. De La Haye stated that there has been a 50 per cent increase in the number of children and adolescents using ganja in Jamaica.

However, NCDA Deputy Chairman Professor Wendel Abel dismissed as wrong De La Haye’s interpretation of the report, noting that ganja use has in fact been stable for the most part and that there is no data in hand to suggest a 50 per cent increase in ganja use since Jamaica decriminalised ganja for personal use. He noted further that “absolutely no research or study” has been done since decriminalisation on adolescent use of ganja in Jamaica.

Seiveright later argued that he is not pleased that Jamaica has such a powerful image in the ganja space which is being left to fall even further behind Israel, Germany, the Netherlands, Uruguay, Canada, The United States, Portugal and other countries.

Santiago argued that the medical marijuana sector needs the backing of the Ministry of Health.

“You can’t have a robust medical marijuana industry without having an appropriate ministry behind it. It’s called medical marijuana; how are you going to not have the doctors behind it? It makes no sense,” Santiago declared.

“If you question 100 Jamaican physicians, be it bush doctors to the highest level physicians, they all agree to some extent of the medical efficacy of medical marijuana. It truly has a medicinal value; it is of benefit to the Jamaican population as both a supplement and a medical cure to many ailments.”

When the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act 2015 came into effect on April 15, 2015, it brought provisions in place for the possession and smoking of ganja; use of ganja by people of the rastafarian faith; and, use of ganja for medical, therapeutic and scientific purposes.