On Wednesday, Customs and Border Control (CBC) entered Doctors Express, an urgent care medical office in George Town owned by local attorney Samuel Banks, and confiscated an unspecified quantity of medical cannabis vaping products. The raid may have taken place as a result of a misunderstanding of the legality surrounding cannabis products in the Cayman Islands. CBC offers no comment on the active investigation.
On 14 September, three days before the raid at Doctors Express, the office of Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Lee issued a request to all medical professionals to halt the practice of prescribing cannabis vaping products to patients.
Dr. Lee’s office explained their opposition to the use of medical cannabinoids: because little evidence exists to support the use of vaping and because vaping may be neither safe nor effective as a medical treatment option, they would prefer to do more investigations into the use of cannabinoids for patients before allowing prescriptions going forward.
This request to doctors to cease and desist the prescription of cannabis presents a challenge to the fact that the use of cannabis oils and tinctures for medical purposes has been legalized. A rise in cannabis prescriptions as well as increases in the importation of cannabis have been noted, but doctors who advocate for the use of medical cannabis accept that patients may prefer the more natural approach that cannabis offers over pharmaceuticals.
Doctors Express recently advertised their new selection of medical cannabis vaping products, inviting commentary from detractors and supporters of cannabinoids in medicine. Their efforts to publicize the availability of the products by prescription are lawful.
In recent days, the spread of misinformation on social media has led to confusion around the relationship between medical cannabis and the Misuse of Drugs Law. Current legislation indicates that the prescription of medical-grade cannabis oils and tinctures by registered doctors is legal. The legislation also allows doctors to determine the dosage and mode of delivery that each patient needs according to the CBD or THC content present in the drug. No explanation regarding the specific aspect of the Misuse of Drugs Law presumed to have been violated by the physicians at Doctors Express is available.
Doctors Express became involved in the social media uproar when the medical facility commented on their concern for patients living with chronic disease and other conditions who benefit from using medical cannabis. To Doctors Express, the cannabis naysayers who oppose the use of the drug in any form are compromising the voices of the people whose lives are improved by the drug.
