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I spoke to Same last year about the policy work he is doing with multiple jurisdictions in the Caribbean.
He has now published the report
“From the Code Noir to GACP/GMP: Cannabis and the New Colonial Economy”
The Caribbean is dismantling prohibition. The harder task is ensuring that legal cannabis does not reproduce an older economic order in which the South grows the commodity while standards, capital, certification and value are controlled elsewhere.
In May 2026, France’s National Assembly adopted at first reading a bill providing for the repeal of the Code Noir, the 1685 edict that helped organise slavery in France’s American colonies. The measure is not yet final and remains in the parliamentary process. One detail of the debate, however, is revealing. The text uses the language of abrogation. An amendment proposed replacing that word with annulment. The distinction is not merely semantic. Abrogation removes a rule from the legal order. Nullity goes further by challenging its legal validity at the root. France used that stronger logic after the fall of the Vichy regime, including for measures that established or applied discrimination based on Jewish status. The amendment on the Code Noir was withdrawn, and the text retained the language of abrogation. [1][2][3]
There is no moral or legal equivalence between the Code Noir and modern cannabis standards such as Good Agricultural and Collection Practice or Good Manufacturing Practice. GACP and GMP are quality systems. The Code Noir belonged to a legal order of slavery. Nor is there a direct legal genealogy connecting them. The comparison is narrower and more useful. A society can remove a rule without necessarily dismantling the economic structures and relationships of power that developed around it.
That question matters for cannabis reform. Caribbean governments are gradually removing prohibition, creating regulators and writing the rules of legal markets. But ending criminalisation does not decide who will own the industry that replaces it, who will define quality, who will finance compliance or where the highest-value parts of the value chain will sit. The plant can become legal while its value chain remains externally controlled. That is the new colonial question.
We speak about the work he is doing with regulators throughout the region as well as the report and his websites including the International Society of Cannabis
Same is a prominent commentator and strategist who tracks the development of legal cannabis frameworks, market infrastructure, and regulatory rollouts across the region
- Regulatory Infrastructure Before Opening: Francis frequently highlights that emerging Caribbean markets—such as Saint Lucia and St. Kitts and Nevis—are prioritizing robust regulatory scaffolding (like seed-to-sale traceability, testing, and banking compliance) before fully opening commercial operations.
- Inclusion of Traditional Farmers: His analysis often centers on how islands transition from underground or traditional farming (heavily tied to Rastafarian history) into regulated medical and industrial frameworks without pricing out local legacy growers.
- Jurisdictional Strategy: He views the Caribbean cannabis economy not as a single overnight market, but as a patchwork of distinct island jurisdictions (including Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) building compliance step-by-step.
Same Francis
Bio (Source Linked In)
I lead the International Society of Cannabis.
The global cannabis industry is not moving toward one dominant model.
It is fragmenting into multiple regional systems, each shaped by its own regulatory architecture, capital flows, ownership structures, supply chains and political realities.
That fragmentation is not a problem.
It is the opportunity.
ISC exists to help organize a multipolar cannabis industry where the Global South does not simply participate in markets designed elsewhere, but helps define the rules, infrastructure and strategic layers of its own cannabis economy.
Our work focuses on the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
We support governments, regulators, investors, operators and institutions working to turn cannabis from a legalization debate into a structured economic sector.
ISC operates across four strategic areas:
Policy and regulatory advisory
We work with governments and institutions on cannabis frameworks, licensing logic, compliance structures, investment readiness and market architecture.
Market intelligence and investment positioning
Through NEXUS Flash, our free weekly signal brief, we track regulatory shifts, licensing windows, capital movement, export corridors and Global South cannabis signals before they become obvious.
Industry development
Through initiatives such as the Multipolar Cannabis Summit and Cannabis Dossier Caribbean, we create spaces where policy, capital, operators and regional strategy can meet.
Wellness, travel and cultural positioning
Through Sativa Voyages, we connect cannabis, wellness, nature and Caribbean experience design in a way that moves beyond product and into regulated, education-led experiences.
My focus is simple:
help build cannabis systems that are sovereign, investable, compliant and locally rooted.
Because the next phase of cannabis will not be won by whoever grows the most flower or opens the most stores.
It will be shaped by those who control policy, finance, compliance, distribution, medical access, export infrastructure and ownership.
That is where the real power is moving.
If you are serious about Global South cannabis, start with NEXUS Flash:
https://is-cannabis.com/nexus-by-isc/
Same Francis E.
CEO, International Society of Cannabis
https://www.linkedin.com/in/same-francis1/
