The Medicinal Cannabis (R)evolution

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testing, as well as the development of ancillary sectors in marketing, IT support, distribution, finance and administration, which would help support the industry. Member countries that are seeking to attract local and foreign investment to the industry should therefore seek to improve their processes for Doing Business, including time and procedures related to issuing construction permits, registering property and trading across borders.

Figure 4: Medicinal Cannabis Supply Chain

Despite the significant potential benefits, the medicinal cannabis industry in the ECCU must cope with its own peculiar drawbacks. The first may be related to the diseconomies of scale which are characteristic of small countries, and could increase costs of bringing medicinal cannabis to market. Another challenge has been the trend towards domestic production and import substitution by more advanced markets (Hammersvik et al., 2012) and its potential impact on demand for ECCU cannabis exports. The most immediate drawback, however, has been the legal and regulatory concerns in the US, where cannabis is classified as a Schedule I 8 substance.

8 Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.