MONTEGO BAY, St James — American celebrity, television personality, radio talk show host and actorMontel Williams will be the guest speaker at the opening ceremony of the 2017 CanEx Jamaica Business Conference & Expo scheduled for September 1-2 at Montego Bay Convention Centre.

Williams recently launched a line of high-quality, user-friendly marijuana products via his Lenitiv Labs company and also used his influence to drive awareness and educate the public about the healing and medicinal properties of cannabis.

For over two decades Williams, who has multiple sclerosis, has been a public and outspoken advocate of the use of cannabis in treating the autoimmune disease.

Meanwhile, according to event organiser Douglas Gordon, so far 20 other speakers have confirmed their attendance at the second annual conference, including four-time NBA champion and cannabis advocate John Salleya, as well as high-powered cannabis attorney Hilary Bricken of Harris Bricken and the Canna Law Group.

Also included in the line- up of speakers are: chairman of Regulate Florida Dr Uma Dhanabalan of Harvard who is a certified cannabis practitioner; Balram Vaswani of Ganja Inc; Orville Silvera of the Ganja Growers and Producers Association; Larisa Bolivar, head of Grow Green Cannabis in Colorado; and Delano Seiveright, special, advisor to the Ministry of Tourism and director of the Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA).

A new feature of this year’s staging of the conference will be a cannabis job fair to enlighten the public about the employment opportunities available in the sector when it officially opens up.

“We decided to host this job fair to let the public know about the career opportunities in this dynamic industry,” Gordon said. “It is critical that the population begins to understand that this industry is professional, ambitious, global, and growing rapidly. The economic and social benefits from a thriving, well-managed cannabis industry are attainable and significant. We are fortunate to have partnered with Florida-based Canna Headhunters to facilitate this new facet of our programme,” Gordon noted.

“We have had almost 200 registrations in less than four days, well ahead of our expectations. We are looking to match candidates with some of these start-up companies searching for the talent they will need to move their businesses forward,” he added.

Gordon stated that he is encouraged by the progress being made in the local cannabis industry and is happy with the exposure that CanEx has been able to give to the sector.

“There is a significant improvement in the responses from the international community to participate in the conference. It reflects a few things, in my opinion — that CanEx has done its part to date to deliver on what we stated as our objectives on the forward progress by the industry, and the fact that we are holding an event to discuss a global phenomenon in an exceptional city, in a world-class facility,” Gordon said.

Ras Iyah-V, a CLA board member, has thrown his full support behind the conference.

“I congratulate Douglas Gordon and his team for putting on CanEx as it really serves as a great educational platform bringing together professionals and experts from all over the world who are involved in the cannabis industry,” he said. “Jamaica, and people living in Jamaica, need platforms, like CanEx to acquaint ourselves with what is happening in the global cannabis industry and hence be able to get maximum benefit from this cannabis industry.”