On Jan. 19, Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. of the U.S. Virgin Islands\u00a0signed a new law that will make medicinal cannabis accessible to qualified patients in the U.S. territory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have approved the Virgin Islands Medicinal Cannabis Care Act because it is a step in the right direction toward assisting Virgin Islanders suffering from autoimmune and other debilitating medical conditions,\u201d Bryan said in a statement, according to the local\u00a0St. John Source<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Virgin Islands Medicinal Cannabis Patient Care Act establishes guidelines for regulated use and the licensing of dispensaries throughout the territory. Patients suffering from a\u00a0list of serious ailments<\/a>\u00a0including cancer,\u00a0HIV\/AIDS<\/a>, Parkinson\u2019s disease and chronic pain will be able to receive a doctor\u2019s recommendation for medical marijuana. Qualifying residents will be able to possess up to four ounces, with possession for non-residents capped at three ounces. A special permit will be needed for home cultivation of up to 12 plants.<\/p>\n As\u00a0The Source<\/a>\u00a0elaborates, the bill creates a nine-member Cannabis Advisory Board, appointed by the governor and an Office of Cannabis Regulation, as its regulatory arm. Commercial licensees will be able to grow up to 1,000 plants. To prevent monopolies, cultivators will not also be able to own dispensaries. Revenue from sales will be used to fund drug rehabilitation and job training programs, tourism and agricultural projects and infrastructure.<\/p>\n In signing the bill, Bryan said the legislation gives effect to a 2014 referendum in which a majority of Virgin Islands voters approved the idea of a medical marijuana law. \u201cSince the referendum, it is clear that marijuana-use policy in the United States has been changing rapidly in favor of medicinal and recreational use and will continue, even potentially on the federal level,\u201d Bryan said.<\/p>\n The non-binding ballot question was\u00a0approved<\/a>\u00a0by 56 percent of voters in November 2014, signaling majority support.\u00a0A bill to legalize medicinal marijuana in the territory\u00a0soundly passed<\/a>\u00a0the territory\u2019s bicameral legislature on Dec. 28 of last year. The passage came after the legislature heard much testimony from advocates on the medical, economic and agricultural benefits of cannabis.<\/p>\n Barbara LaRonde of\u00a0USVI NORML<\/a>, who sat in Senate chambers all that day, was elated by the passage. \u201cThere\u2019s so many emotions bubbling inside,\u201d she told\u00a0The Source\u00a0after the vote. \u201cI want to jump with joy. I\u2019m thinking, \u2018What\u2019s the next step?\u2019 It\u2019s been a long trial to finally get to this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n LaRonde said she hopes to eventually explore the possibility of allowing cannabis for sacramental use.\u00a0\u201cWe do have a population of Rastafarians who have kept this tradition alive\u2026and they should also be given the legal right to consume it in that fashion,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The Virgin Islands decriminalized cannabis in December 2014, when the legislature\u00a0voted to override<\/a>\u00a0a veto by the territory\u2019s then-governor, John de Jongh Jr. That law made possession of less than one ounce a civil offense punishable by a fine of up to $200. Like the just-passed medical bill, it was sponsored by Sen. Terrence \u201cPositive\u201d Nelson, one of the USVI\u2019s openly Rastafarian lawmakers.<\/p>\n Concerns were raised about assuring local control of any emergent cannabis industry in the territory. Radio host and Virgin Islands historian Mario Moorhead\u00a0cautioned<\/a>\u00a0that full legalization could lead to outside interests flooding the market with imported cannabis, or controlling local production \u2014 creating only a few low-paying jobs for those born and raised in the archipelago.<\/p>\n In 2016, as the debate gained momentum, The Source wrote in an editorial entitled \u201cLegalize It Now! (But Do It Right)<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cIf some corporation imports marijuana to this tropical island, much of the money will immediately turn around and leave the territory. Instead of young men selling on the street corners and in the bars, we will have a smaller number of young men working for minimum wage at the register in some chain shop. We can do better.\u201d<\/p>\n The editorial called for legalizing only locally grown cannabis and restricting production to \u201ctraditional family farms, defined, like local fishing, by families who have traditionally engaged in farming in the USVI.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The editorial also recognized legalization as a human rights issue, noting an egregious case in 2012, when raids on several St. Croix homes to break up a supposed marijuana ring left a local youth dead \u2014 who turned out to be the son of a prominent personage on the island.<\/p>\n The youth, Kendall Petersen Jr, was shot by police while fleeing his house. His father, Kendall \u201cSeigo\u201d Petersen, a Rastafarian elder who had been a Virgin Islands constitutional convention delegate in 2009, had been arrested a few years earlier for marijuana. Seigo Petersen died in 2014,\u00a0hailed as a father figure<\/a>\u00a0for a generation of Crucians (as the people of St. Croix, an island within the U.S. Virgin Islands, are known). The painful affair helped spur a mandate for reform of the territory\u2019s cannabis laws.<\/p>\n The U.S. Virgin Islands now join other U.S. overseas\u00a0territories that have opened legal space for cannabis. Guam\u00a0became the first U.S. territory<\/a>\u00a0to pass a medical marijuana law in 2014. Puerto Rico\u00a0followed suit<\/a>\u00a0the next year. The Northern Mariana Islands\u00a0passed a general legalization<\/a>\u00a0of cannabis last year.<\/p>\n The nation of Jamaica broke ground for sacramental use of cannabis by Rastafarians,\u00a0including such provisions<\/a>\u00a0in its 2015 Ganja Law.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/b>, do you think cannabis legalization rules should support local economies first?<\/p>\n The post Medical Marijuana Legalized in U.S. Virgin Islands<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 19, Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. of the U.S. Virgin Islands\u00a0signed a new law that will make medicinal cannabis accessible to qualified patients in the U.S. territory. \u201cI have approved the Virgin Islands Medicinal Cannabis Care Act because it is a step in the right direction toward assisting VirginContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,3572,3886,900,53,139,146,421,7218],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32498"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32499,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32498\/revisions\/32499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2028Fruits of an Activist Campaign<\/h4>\n
Advocates Seek Local Control Over Cannabis Industry<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Medical Marijuana Legalized in U.S. Virgin Islands<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"