The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas needs to take a more scientific approach and “select our niche market” from 50,000 industrial hemp applications, an advocate for marijuana’s legalisation is urging.

Terry Miller, head of the Bahamas Cannabis Research Institute (BACARI), told Tribune Business this nation should adopt the same model employed for legalising web shop gaming by keeping taxation rates relatively low so as to combat any marijuana “black market”.

Responding to the Bahamas National Commission on Marijuana’s (BNCM) draft report, Mr Miller called for it to provide more “specifics” on how a legalised, fully-regulated medical marijuana could boost local employment and the economy as well as outlining strategies to protect young Bahamians from abusing the drug.

“We (BACARI) had looked at more specifics on how it can boost the economy,” he added. “But before I do there are some other aspects of this I think we really have to emphasise, and particularly from my perspective as someone in treatment and rehabilitation during my life as the executive director of the Bahamas Association of Social Health (BASH).

“One of the reasons why I got into this whole thing was because of how important it is to protect our young people from this new industry. The Commission also said to keep the taxes low so that we do not develop a vibrant black market, because that is the way you are going to be able to protect our kids.”

Mr Miller, drawing parallels between web shop gaming’s legalisation and the possibility this might happen with marijuana, said: “We can develop this in such a way that it cuts out the black market, and those people that are in the black market can be encouraged to participate in legal side of it, just like the guys in the pre-gambling illegality; they were the people that were doing it illegally and now they are legal.

“So the guys that are now selling marijuana illegally should figure out ways to get into the legal side of it, because if we can knock out the black market then we can protect our children. A person who has a license, and who is paying a lump sum for a license every year, would not risk losing his license to sell to an under-aged person. But a person who is already doing something illegal, and is a part of the black market, they don’t really care who they sell to. So that would be a protective measure for our kids.”

The Commission’s report detailed that “licensing fees, real estate, employment, an equity programme and taxation are areas that would produce direct economic effects from the legislation and creation of a cannabis industry for medicinal or recreational use”.

However, it seemingly contained no economic impact assessment or projections on the number of jobs that might be created; the total wage and benefits that would be earned; potential increase in medical tourists; export earnings and other spin-off economic benefits that might be enjoyed.

Mr Miller said: “To put a bit more flesh on the aspect of licenses, what they have missed out.... is the industrialisation of hemp, which is huge. When I first came across the Canadian manual on industrial hemp, which was produced in 2005, the Canadians said that they had a vision.

“You see, if you get into this and you don’t have a vision - a clearly-defined national vision on how we want this industry to develop and where we want to be in this industry internationally - again, we are going to have some problems.

“The Canadians said that Canada will be the number one producer of industrial hemp products in the world, but from The Bahamas all I’m hearing about is individual personal use and recreational use and medicinal, but there is an industrial part of this that we need to start really looking seriously at this because we can turn into a producer nation.

“When the Canadians produced that 2005 booklet they said that marijuana had about 2,000 industrial applications. But, as of last year, industrial hemp has now over 50,000 applications so we need to pick and choose our niche market in that.”

Detailing the main economic benefits from legalising marijuana, Mr Miller said: “So, when we look at licensing, the number one license would be the grower/cultivator license, but that would be broken into two categories where one would be industrial hemp and one would be medicinal marijuana, and we are possibly looking at three types of licenses when we add in recreational use.

“Then we have security and transportation. That’s another license. People would have to be trained on how to move marijuana from one place to the next because it is still a controlled substance. Legal but controlled. Dispensaries is a another set of licensing, where doctors would write prescriptions for a particular type of CBD oil product and you go to the dispensary and pay that.

“Product development and manufacturing, both for medicinal marijuana and industrial hemp. That is two separate licenses there. Then there is export and import licenses. There are millions of dollars the Government can make from licences even before we get to the VAT (value added tax), but we need to ensure that we encourage more Bahamians away from the black market sales that can harm our children.”

Mr Miller continued: “The industrial hemp market is growing. The whole marijuana, cannabis, industrial hemp and medicinal industries are growing. We are really only touching the surface of the marijuana benefits. The industrial hemp market is in the billions already.

“Talking about how the government can make money from this industry, all of these licenses are going to have different costs. Then we can also look at research and development, because every time you come up with a new product you are talking about the potential to make millions of dollars.”

Outlining the value that can be added by establishing “vape shops”, Mr Miller said: “I have been hearing about reports all of my life where tourists are robbed downtown. There are a number of tourists that come to this country that get ripped off giving people money to go and buy them drugs, and the person never comes back.

“Thirty to 40 percent of that is not a robbery, but the money was taken from them. If we had vape shops where people can go along Bay Street, I bet you we would see a significant drop in the reports of tourist robberies.”