COVID-19 impacts medical cannabis plans

Since the opening of the application process five days ago, there has been one completed application to the Barbados Medicinal Cannabis Licensing Authority (BMCLA), and 15 of them “in draft”, according to officials.

This comes as Chief Executive Officer of the BMCLA Dr Shantal Munro-Knight revealed that the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic here had knocked some of the wind out of the plans for the development of the local medicinal cannabis industry.

She disclosed that while several developments were still taking place, the pandemic had resulted in some international investors losing interest after having “a lot of energy” post COVID-19.

“At the same time, what we are also seeing is a different trend as well, where there are investors who are interested but can’t find themselves on the ground, but they are working through local agents. So we have seen that model emerging more and more in the context of this COVID environment,” she said.

The pandemic has also resulted in the postponement of community outreach programmes for an open applications clinic, and a service providers’ forum to highlight the value chain for the industry.

Munro-Knight added: “One of the big initiatives that we had before the second wave of COVID was to actually do an investors meet and greet. We had intended to invite international investors, and we had actually gone out and assessed the interest to then meet local small potential investors in the industry to do a little bit of a match-up and peering.

“I must say the international investors were very excited and willing to participate. That is something we would have envisioned facilitating face-to-face so they could do their pitch. So we are trying to look for how we can still do that in this environment,” she added.

Munro-Knight added: “One of the other things was training – if the COVID [second wave] did not happen we would have actually had a master grower on the island in Barbados just about now, working with potential investors, giving them advice and doing demonstrations for them. That is something we are still attempting to do by moving that to an online forum.”

In relation to the applications, Munro-Knight said the one fully completed application was for an import licence as well as a tier one cultivation licence – the more affordable cultivation tier, which attracts an application fee of $1,980 and a license fee of $29,700 per acre.

“That person has applied for two licences. But what for us is really good is the suggestion that small players will not be able to get into the market or not be interested because of a number of challenges, but the very first [application] that we have that is fully submitted is for a tier one applicant who has applied for two licences,” she said.

While opting not to say too much about the applications in draft, Munro-Knight said a brief analysis showed that they were for six categories of licenses – research and development, importation, exportation, transportation, cultivation and retail distribution.

“So we just have laboratory and processor thus far that we haven’t seen any applications for, but we are confident that those will be filled,” she said, adding that the majority of the applications for cultivation were for tier one.

Pointing out that the BMCLA was continuing its outreach efforts despite the pandemic, Munro-Knight said a number of initiatives were still on the cards including the development of a traceability system which officials were hoping to introduce by the end of next month.

“This system will allow us to monitor every single input in the industry and be able to track it . . . everybody will be required to enter their information in the track and trace so that we will be able to monitor what is happening in the industry, not only in terms of being able to see when there is a security issue but seeing what is moving most,” she said.

She said BMCLA was also working closely with the Barbados National Standards Institution to develop “very strict and comprehensive” standards and the TVET Council to offer training and certification in cultivation, and the University of West Indies and Ministry of Agriculture for value chain areas.

The time of application to approval and granting of the licence should take a maximum of four months. (MM)