
The U.S. Virgin Islands is poised to legalize cannabis after lawmakers passed an adult-use cannabis legalization bill Dec. 30, sending it to the governor’s desk.
Gov. Albert Bryan is expected to sign the legislation into law, according to the St. Kitts & Nevis Observer, and the measure is already veto-proof after 11 senators voted in favor.
Lawmakers approved the legalization bill alongside legislation to automatically expunge the records of individuals with past cannabis-related convictions.
Sen. Janelle Sarauw introduced the pair of bills in October. She said Friday that several steps still need to be taken to implement an adult-use cannabis market.
“Cannabis will be on the governor’s desk in no time and we have done absolutely nothing to move cannabis forward,” Sarauw said, according to the Observer. “We bawl, I get [attacked] in debates about cannabis and it will be on the governor’s desk—rules and regs haven’t been promulgated, no [seed-to-sale] tracking system, nothing has moved with this industry,” she said.
The Virgin Islands is in the process of launching a medical cannabis market after voters approved medical cannabis legalization in the 2014 election. The Legislature passed the Medical Cannabis Patient Care Act in 2018 to implement the program, and the V.I. Cannabis Advisory Board (VICAB) approved the final draft rules for the program in August.
The medical cannabis market is expected to launch sometime this year, and if Bryan signs off on the adult-use legalization bill, Virgin Islands residents will be able to purchase both medical and adult-use cannabis from licensed dispensaries, once they are operational.