St. Croix cannabis testing lab under construction as commercial cultivation begins
The Office of Cannabis Regulation's first territorial cannabis testing facility is under construction on St. Croix, with a St. Thomas hub planned, even as Board Member Dr. Gary Jett questions whether the Department of Property and Procurement's selection process bypassed the Cannabis Advisory Board.
· Updated April 12, 2026
March 13, 2026. The first Virgin Islands cannabis testing laboratory is under construction on St. Croix, the Office of Cannabis Regulation confirmed this week, with a second testing hub planned for St. Thomas. The company selected to operate the facility was chosen through a Department of Property and Procurement bid process, reviewed by a committee of territorial and national laboratory experts. The Office of Cannabis Regulation has not publicly named the operator, pending final notification to other respondents.
Why testing matters before sales can open
Every gram of cannabis flower, every concentrate, and every infused product sold in a licensed Virgin Islands dispensary must first pass through an accredited in-territory testing facility for potency and contamination screening. Section 777-13 of the 2024 Cannabis Rules and Regulations conditions a Certificate to Operate on the existence of that testing infrastructure. Without it, the January 16 conditional dispensary licensees cannot legally stock product, even if their build-outs are complete and their Metrc Retail ID QR code requirements from the February 12 Cannabis Advisory Board vote are in place.
Executive Director Joanne Moorehead told the Virgin Islands Consortium that commercial cultivation remained on track to begin “by the end of this month for a small group of the approximately 14 current licensees.” Micro cultivation is expected to begin within six to eight weeks of that start, putting the first harvested product into the supply chain between late April and early June 2026. Cultivation license holders have completed status meetings with the Office of Cannabis Regulation, and at least one to two operators on St. Thomas and St. Croix are in position to plant first.
The Board tension
Board Member Dr. Gary Jett raised an objection to the Department of Property and Procurement’s role in selecting the testing lab, arguing that the Cannabis Advisory Board was better positioned than a general procurement office to evaluate a cannabis-specific facility. The objection did not reach a vote. Under the 2024 Rules, laboratory proposals are processed through procurement channels, not through the Board’s merit-scoring rubric that applies to cultivation, dispensary, and retailer licenses.
What else is moving
The Office of Cannabis Regulation’s March 13 update to the Virgin Islands Consortium flagged several parallel tracks. Manufacturing license applications, nine of which were under review as of February 12, are still moving toward conditional approval decisions. At least four or five of the ten conditional dispensary licensees are on track to be fully operational by fall 2026. A new commercial cultivation application round is projected to reopen in June 2026.
What to watch
Three clocks now run in parallel: the April 23, 2026 Office of Cannabis Regulation rulemaking deadline for the Intoxicating Hemp Retailer License, the April-to-June window for the first harvested commercial cannabis, and the fall 2026 opening target Moorehead committed to on February 3. The grow operator guide tracks the cultivation sequence feeding those dates.