Jamaica: Hundreds of Westmoreland Ganja Farmers Register Under New CLA Permits

As of June 2026, hundreds of cannabis farmers from across the parish of Westmoreland, in western Jamaica, have gathered in Orange Hill to register under the Cannabis Licensing Authority’s new zero-fee permit programmes. The Jamaica Gleaner reported the registration drive on 9 June. It is the first mass sign-up reported since the CLA published the Special Community Permit and Cultivators’ Transitional Special Permit in April.

What Happened

The registration drive was organised by Ian Hayles, Member of Parliament for Westmoreland Western, and held last Thursday at Orange Hill, a community in the parish that has supplied Jamaica’s informal ganja market for generations. Farmers, agricultural suppliers, and ganja advocates from across the parish attended.

“More Jamaicans can now sign up to do what they did illegally,” Hayles told attendees, referring to the CLA’s revised regulations that allow traditional farmers to enter the industry collectively under a community permit, with no application fees and no requirement that members co-locate their plots.

Ras Iyah V, a longtime ganja advocate present at the event, told the gathering that extraction facilities and market access need to follow the registration drive. Without somewhere to process flower into value-added products, he said, the legal pathway stops at the farm gate.

What This Means for Travelers

Westmoreland Western covers Negril, the West End, and the stretch of coast where most cannabis-curious visitors to Jamaica end up. The Orange Hill area, recognised inside Jamaica as a distinct origin region, sits a short drive inland from those resorts. If the registration drive translates into licensed cultivators across the parish, the flower moving through Negril’s herb houses will be coming, more often, from farms a few miles away rather than from the larger operators in Saint Ann and Trelawny.

For tourists, the day-of process at the herb house does not change. You still pay around US$10 for the medical authorisation that lets you buy. What changes is the supply behind the counter. More licensed Westmoreland growers means more parish-grown flower entering the legal retail network that travellers see.

What to Watch

The CLA has not yet published a registration count for either permit programme. Hayles framed the Orange Hill turnout as a model his office plans to repeat across other constituencies in the parish. Whether the Authority opens a regional office in Westmoreland, or whether registered farmers travel to Kingston for processing, will set the pace. The extraction facility Ras Iyah V called for has no announced timeline.

The Westmoreland Hemp and Ganja Farmers’ Association, which has lobbied for a parish-wide ganja-free zone since the 2017 Alternative Development Programme stalled, is the body most likely to surface the first numbers once they exist.