About one decade ago talking about cannabis in professional spaces was still taboo. Cannabis was still considered to be a highly dangerous drug with no medical use. Fast-forward to today and the medicinal cannabis industry is on the verge of becoming one of the most lucrative industries worldwide. For brothers Dwayne and Karibe Mckenzie, the announcement that the Jamaican Government would start to explore a legal medicinal cannabis industry was the catalyst they needed to bring what many considered the finest cannabis to the rest of the world. Since then, the two brothers have been championing the cause locally through their company, which is registered as Epican Medicinal Limited.

But the story of Epican starts overseas, Dwayne McKenzie shared, “before we had moved back to Jamaica to start Epican we were already involved in the traditional healing medicines. We spent time in Africa and time in Belize working with indigenous healers and we also spent time in the legal industry in California ahead of time”.

He said once they received news of Jamaica’s intention regarding the burgeoning industry, they didn’t wait to come home and set up shop.

“We always wanted Jamaica’s Government to evolve to that point, so when the initial conversation came up we pretty much dropped everything that we had going on, all of our other business relationships… that we had happening. We literally changed and dropped everything to come home and to try to give this our best shot with all the expertise that we had,” he explained.

But the journey proved to be more daunting than the Epican bosses anticipated. McKenzie admitted that he started to harbour doubt, especially in the early days of the industry.

“It was a challenge and it took a long period of time; it was a lot of patience and a lot of doubt if this really was going to happen for Jamaica,” he stated.

Notwithstanding, he said there was evidence that it could be done, pointing to other countries where it had already been done.

He said, “In hindsight when you look back on it, it’s understandable. We’re just really glad that they were able to push it over the line for us to be able to get started.”

But even as the industry blossomed, McKenzie opined there were serious teething pains particularly where banking is concerned.

“Before we got the licence we had about seven bank accounts because, believe it or not, part of the requirements to actually apply to get the licence was being able to have a bank account. Right after we got the licence, all of these accounts were closed and it was made very clear to us that based on the international laws of banking they were not able to bank any cannabis dollars. So, that took banking out of the situation immediately for us, which of course changed the playing field, making things more difficult for us. Little things like purchasing the things that you need that’s coming from international space, all of these things became much more challenging than they had to be as a result of not having banking or the access to banking,” he explained.

But that didn’t prevent the entrepreneur from operating. He said things were unnecessarily tedious but he got creative.

“It’s doing things that take a lot longer. So, now you have to find some way to get the money to someone else who could help you order the things if it has to be ordered by credit card or you find some way to send it in some other form via money order and all these different things that just takes up time and is more costly as well. Sometimes, it resulted in us running out of stock because we were waiting. We are trying to get in raw materials from certain places and you need six weeks in advance, but it takes you four weeks just to get the money to give to them, whereas if you had banking it would just be a push of a button,” he continued.

McKenzie noted that after about two years he got used to working in that way and became proactive in minimising the shortcomings.

With the banking hurdle clear, Epican was ready to open its doors to the public with anticipation that sales would be through the roof. However, that was not the reality.

“When we just started we had anticipated that coming into the space with something fresh, a product that is very well-known in the number one place in the world known for cannabis, we anticipated that people would be running through the doors; however, that was not so at all,” he exclaimed. “What we found happening is that people were literally intimidated by the fact that they had to get a doctor’s recommendation. So, there was a lot of misconceptions where that is concerned, because people felt like they needed to have an ailment or they need to tell the doctor that they have some sort of sickness in order for them to get access to using cannabis. No one in Jamaica had done anything like that before or had found the necessity for that, so it was a formal feeling.”

With that, the McKenzie brothers went back to the drawing board, recognising they need to reprogramme and rethink their approach.

After doing their due diligence regarding the cultural nuances in the market, he said people started to realise they could deal with cannabis in a professional way.

“What we found is that the people who really needed it for medical purposes, they were the ones that were mostly coming first.”

He highlighted that these were mostly people who suffered with sleep apnea, anxiety and pain.

Though things had got off to a slow start, they eventually started to pick up.

Today, the Epican boss is outlining even more opportunities in the industry.

“It can be very lucrative if your equation is correct and if you have the ability to do the long haul. So, just like any other brand-new business, whether it is in an industry that is known or unknown, it’s going to take three to five years for you to catch your footing, realistically. But what we see is that this business has so many different avenues and aspects to it that we’re really just at the beginning of it all. So, the opportunities that are ahead [are] grander that what exists right now,” he commented.

“The industry is not about the finished product, it’s about other things as well, like packaging; we have to be buying things from overseas, [and] it takes so long to come and it’s expensive. These are the things that we can look into, the value-added things, our indigenous fertiliser, etc,” he continued.

Looking ahead, he has advice for up-and-coming entrepreneurs who would like to pursue a career in the industry.

“For the younger generation coming up, I would urge them to look in that direction [value-added production] because you’re putting yourself in a space to be able to be more marketable on an international perspective with things that everyone needs.”

In the meantime, he disclosed that Epican has many plans in the pipeline, which he intends to bring on-stream soon.

“Coming out of the pandemic was extremely challenging for us, [but] we are really on a very good stride right now. We had some hold-ups with the legal parameters with the Government and the CLA (Cannabis Licensing Authority), but we were able to get over those hurdles and everything is much better now. Our relationship with the CLA is better now and they are doing a much better job. We’re at a pivotal point now to really push through with a lot of our plans that we weren’t able to push through over the last two-and-a-half years. We have some new strains that we’ve been holding onto for the longest time that we’re going to be bringing out, which are very popular strains. We’re going to be doing some collaborations and some really interesting things, including ideas we have been sitting on,” he revealed.

In the meantime, he acknowledged that there’s still room for improvement, especially where inclusion, certification and expansion in the local market is concerned.

“When we just signed up to get into the business, the initial plan was not to go into farming as well. We thought there was going to be a small farmers’ initiative. We thought that we could just focus on processing and retail and leave that space for someone else. But, as time went on, we realised that not many licences were being issued [in] that direction and that the small farmers’ programme was not at the place where it could be integrated with the legal space so, knowing the kind of quality that we needed to bring to the table, we were the first company to be totally integrated.”

The full integration he referred to speaks to the fact that in addition to receving the very first license which was issued by the CLA in Jamaica, Epican is also licensed to operate a cannabis farm, to conduct processing to make medicines, as well as to operate two retail stores which are located in Kingston and Montego Bay.

In terms of certification, he disclosed that stakeholders have not been able to fully tap into the potential of the local space with finished products because of certification challenges.

“The Ministry of Health does not have a certification area for nutraceuticals, so in order for you to register it has to be either a food or a drug and when you have to go through the drug part of the litigation it’s much more longer, expensive and tedious for something that should just have to be treated as a nutraceutical,” he argued.

Nevertheless, he stressed that the overall aim of Epican is to bring the relationship between cannabis and Jamaicans to a more respectable place so that the brand becomes more competitive on an international scale.

This is why the presentation of Epican facilities, he said, are high-end.

“Our philosophy is that it’s not a cannabis business; it’s a lifestyle business.”