Virgin Islands Daily News
Rules and regulations for medicinal cannabis have yet to be approved by the Cannabis Advisory Board, and Government House continues to defer questions on the the V.I. government’s efforts to implement the nearly four-year-old law.
At a press briefing earlier this month Government House Communications Director Richard Motta Jr. said he didn’t know the status of the rules and regulations.
Motta referred questions at Government House briefings on Nov. 7 and Nov. 14, about the delay to Hannah Carty, the director of the Office of Cannabis Regulation, which operates under the Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs.
Carty and DLCA Commissioner Richard Evangelista have not responded to any questions from The Daily News since Sept. 16.
In addition, The Daily News sent requests on Nov. 3, Nov. 7, and Nov. 14, asking for information about how much taxpayer money was spent by both the executive branch and the Legislature on an October 2021 trip to Colorado to study that state’s marijuana industry.
Motta, Evangelista, and Senate President Donna Frett-Gregory have not acknowledged or responded to those requests.
Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. was among those who went on the trip, which included 12 senators and a number of staff members.
It’s not the first time Virgin Islands lawmakers have spent taxpayer money on travel to the mainland to learn more about the legal cannabis industry.
In 2015, former Sen. Positive Nelson — who now serves as Agriculture Commissioner and is also a member of the Cannabis Advisory Board — traveled to Washington and Colorado with two staff members and Tregenza Roach, who was a senator at the time and now serves as lieutenent governor.
The expenses for that trip totaled $13,794, which was paid with taxpayer money, according to documentation The Daily News obtained at the time via a request under the territory’s Open Records Act.
The information gathered on that trip informed medical cannabis legislation that was considered in 2016, and finally signed into law by Bryan in January 2019 — his first act after taking office.
But nearly four years later, there’s no indication the government intends to actually implement the law, and Carty has not responded to questions about whether the government has abandoned the legislation.
During a town hall-style meeting on Sept. 7, Carty said that the Cannabis Advisory Board was tentatively scheduled to meet on Sept. 26 to approve the final rules and regulations for medical cannabis use in the territory, and they anticipated opening applications for cultivator licenses on Oct. 3.
The board still has not met to approve the draft regulations, and Carty has not responded to questions about when the board will meet again.
The 33rd Legislature appropriated $250,000 for the purchase of “cannabis-related software,” which has never been purchased, and the government gave the Office of Cannabis Regulation a $500,000 loan from the General Fund.
Only $68,201.45 has been spent as of September, the majority of which has gone to pay Carty, who was hired in January at a salary of $100,000 a year.
Neither Carty nor Evangelista have responded to requests for an updated accounting of the OCR’s expenditures.
The Legislature’s legal counsel approved the final draft of a 71-page adult-use, or recreational cannabis bill on Oct. 10, and the legislation is now ready for discussion on the Senate floor, according to Sen. Janelle Sarauw.
But the bill still needs to go through a lengthy vetting process, and Bryan said during the October 2021 trip to Colorado that, “it will take another year and a half to get this industry up, even if we approve that legislation today.”
Bryan’s 2023 executive budget anticipates $10 million in tax revenue from legal cannabis sales, and Motta said that the revenue was expected to come from recreational cannabis sales.
As the recreational cannabis law has not been passed — and it takes around three to eight months to grow cannabis plants — Motta acknowledged that the $10 million likely will not be realized in this budget cycle.
“The budget that’s submitted to the Legislature is an estimate. As I mentioned, there was enabling legislation that was sent down to the Legislature with that budget. That legislation was not acted upon, and so that revenue obviously would not be realized in this budget cycle until that legislation has been enacted upon, and the industry could be set up and we could start realizing tax revenue from that,” Motta said.
He insisted, however, that the government has not abandoned efforts to implement the medical cannabis law.
“No, it has not. And as I mentioned to you last week, you’ll have to reach out to the Office of Cannabis Registry for a detailed update on where exactly they stand on promulgating those rules and regulations,” he said following the Nov. 14 press briefing. “I do not have that information, currently. So, you’ll have to reach out to them.”
H/T: www.virginislandsdailynews.com
