From left: Balram Vaswani, chief ganja officer of Kaya Inc; Kathy Miller, Radio Cayman; Delano Seiveright of Jamaica’s Cannabis Licensing Authority; Prentice Panton, CEO of Reflections Cayman; T’Shura Gibbs, CEO of Zimmer & Co; Douglas K Gordan, founder of CanEx Jamaica at Capital Meets Cannabis conference at the Westin Resort in Grand Cayman on Thursday.

Cannabis Reform Advocate Delano Seiveright told a large group of business stakeholders in the Cayman Islands that Jamaica is at the forefront of cannabis reform developments in the region despite some major challenges in getting the industry moving at an even faster pace.

“Jamaica is at the forefront of the cannabis reform movement in the Caribbean. It was just four years ago that Jamaica amended the Dangerous Drugs Act thereby correcting as much as possible a long history of social hurt brought on by the repressive law, that had a negative and disproportionate impact on the less fortunate and Rastafari while facilitating the development of Jamaica’s medical, therapeutic and scientific ganja industry under the umbrella of the Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA),” Seiveright said.

Seiveright was speaking at a CANEX investment summit at the Westin Resort in Grand Cayman attended by a large body of local and international investors and other stakeholders. The Summit is one in a series led by Douglas Gordon and T’shura Gibbs of Zimmer + Co across the Caribbean and brings together a broad mix of Government, business, academic and other stakeholders from across the globe.

Seiveright, Government of Jamaica’s Senior Advisor/Strategist for Tourism, who is also a board director of the CLA and Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO), Jamaica’s Trade and Investment Agency, hastened to add that the CLA has granted some 35 licences in the mid-2016 the board of CLA started taking applications, thereafter granting the first set of licences in late 2017 and now have issued over 35 licences, spanning cultivator, retail, processing and research and development.

“More broadly, we have 600 applications to date that includes 190 applications at conditional approval stage and another 367 at desk review and verification stage. No other country in the Caribbean has achieved even quarter of what Jamaica has and the board of the CLA, led by Hyacinth Lightbourne and its chief executive officer, Lincoln Allen deserve commendation for their efforts in a space that grossly lacked resources and is riddled with very complex policy, legal, regulatory, social, international and political dynamics,” Seivwright noted.

The CLA issues five types of licences with 11 categories: Cultivator’s Licence ( Tier 1: up to 1 acre), Cultivator’s Licence (Tier 2: above 1 acre up to 5 acres), Cultivator’s Licence (Tier 3: over 5 acres), Processing (Tier 1: up to 200 square metres), Processing (Tier 2: over 200 square metres), Retail (Herb House — with facilities for consumption), Retail (Herb House — without facilities for consumption), Retail (Therapeutic Services), Research and Development (Experimental Services),Research and Developmental (Analytical Services) and Transportation.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sunday-finance/jamaica-leading-the-region-on-cannabis_165694