BVI lawmakers approve a medical cannabis licensing bill

BVI lawmakers approved a medical cannabis licensing bill on 30 June 2020, proposing a local authority to regulate cultivation, processing, distribution and sales.^[1][2] The plan still needed assent, and the Governor later called for an agreement with the UK over licensing responsibilities and international obligations.^[3]

A new authority would oversee the industry

The published bill proposed an authority responsible for licensing and managing a medicinal cannabis system.^[2] Its remit covered growing, processing, testing, import, export, distribution and sale, putting those activities within a dedicated regulatory structure.^[2]

The proposal also provided for licensed dispensaries, standards and records, linking the supply of cannabis to authorised businesses.^[2] Its commencement clause left the start date to a later ministerial notice.^[2] Passage through the House was therefore one stage in the proposed system’s development.^[1][2]

Patients and therapeutic users had different proposed routes

The published dispensing clause provided three routes: up to one gram after proof of adult age, up to fifty grams after a declaration of therapeutic use, or an amount recommended in a medical document.^[2] Dispensaries would issue receipts recording the quantity and retain the information in a register.^[2]

Those details describe the published proposal.^[2] The official passage register records the House’s approval, with no assent or gazette publication entered for the bill.^[1] A companion record-clearing bill passed two days later.^[1]

The Governor wanted licensing responsibilities settled

In December 2020, Governor Augustus Jaspert said the UK Home Office then acted as the BVI’s narcotics licensing authority.^[3] He said the proposed local authority required preliminary work and a formal agreement to transfer that responsibility and protect compliance with the international drug conventions.^[3]

Jaspert supported economic diversification through a new industry, while tying assent to those arrangements.^[3] The dispute therefore involved both the planned industry and responsibility for supervising it.^[3]

A later premier considered another route

In January 2023, Premier Natalio Wheatley said talks with the UK had identified a way towards licensing doctors to administer medical cannabis.^[4] He suggested examining regulations under existing legislation while reconsidering whether the 2020 bill remained the preferred route.^[4]

An official July 2026 review still reported the bill awaiting assent.^[5] That unresolved step remains part of the reform history of the British Virgin Islands.^[5]