Article – Invest Barbados: What a difference a year makes. The Barbados Medicinal Cannabis Licensing Authority (BMCLA) has spent the 2023-2024 period on the course to greater heights with approved licenses reaching 33.

Header Image & Author: Shanika Roberts-Odle, CEO (Ag.) Barbados Medicinal Cannabis Licensing Authority

What a difference a year makes. The Barbados Medicinal Cannabis Licensing Authority (BMCLA) has spent the 2023-2024 period on the course to greater heights with approved licenses reaching 33; distributed among 11 licensees and managing the various mitigating issues surrounding the industry. Following we shall discuss a highlight, an issue and a promise.

Key among the positives of this period has been the addition of the University of the West Indies (UWI) – Cave Hill Campus among the licensees, under a Memorandum of Understanding with the BMCLA. UWI has become a member of a very elite group of universities around the world officially licensed in the medicinal cannabis space. With the Research and Development License, along with complementary Import and Export Licences, the University is now poised to further engage in research in cardiometabolic syndrome – a cluster of metabolic risk factors that increase the probability of developing Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke, according to the UWI. Researchers also plan to investigate how cannabis-based products can affect diseases of the central nervous system, like epilepsy.

It is planned that this research will also be carried into the social sciences space in areas such as stigma, substance abuse and the perception versus reality of cannabis use in Barbados. The fact remains that the more research completed into a subject by such a respected university can only lend itself to the increasing comfort of patients, doctors and the wider medical community with medicinal cannabis as an effective and recognised treatment resource.

There are still many issues facing the local industry, the clearest of which is the inability to resolve the problem of banking. Banks in Barbados are mainly Canadian that use US correspondent banks, and they have clearly articulated that until the US Federal system approves the legitimacy of the medicinal cannabis Industry, they are unwilling to engage the industry. This is not only the case for Barbados as this challenge also exists in other nations, which has driven a cash only system in some cases. The BMCLA has continued to engage the Banking Association and other government officials to work towards a solution to the matter.

Finally, as acting CEO of the BMCLA, I promise to continue to listen with an open mind, pursue solutions wherever legally possible and continuously engage in progress over perfection.

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