The Office of Cannabis Regulation, OCR for short, is the agency inside the Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs that runs the Virgin Islands cannabis program. It writes the rules, issues the licenses, inspects the facilities, collects the fees, and enforces the statute. If something in the USVI cannabis market happens, OCR is either the cause, the referee, or the bottleneck.
What OCR is, in the current law
The OCR’s authority comes from Act 8680, the Virgin Islands Cannabis Use Act, signed in January 2023. Act 8680 replaced the older medical-cannabis statute (the MCPCA) in its entirety and placed the OCR inside DLCA as the single regulator for both adult-use and medical cannabis.
Act 9072, signed in January 2026, widened the OCR’s remit one more time. Under Act 9072, the OCR also licenses and enforces the new Intoxicating Hemp/Artificially Derived Cannabinoid Retailer category, which is how the territory will eventually regulate delta-8, THCA, and similar products once rulemaking is complete. Until those rules exist, no retailer can sell those products at all. See Is CBD still legal in the USVI? for the full picture.
What OCR actually does
Under Act 8680 § 778 and the 2024 Approved Rules, OCR’s responsibilities run across three broad buckets:
License and permit issuance. The OCR may issue ten categories of cannabis license or permit: Cultivation, Manufacturing, Dispensary, Research and Development, Testing Facility, Adult-Use Lounge Permit, Cannabis Use Permit, Temporary Cannabis Use Permit, Onsite Consumption Permit, and Micro-Cultivation Permit. Act 9072 added an eleventh category, the Intoxicating Hemp Retailer License. Every license goes through a merit-based application process with a published scoring rubric, and social equity points must make up at least 15% of the total.
Per-island caps and residency. § 787 caps dispensary licenses at seven on St. Thomas, seven on St. Croix, and three on St. John. Cultivation caps run 15 / 15 / 5. OCR may issue more only after January 1, 2025 and only after conducting a study showing demand will exceed supply within 24 months. § 786(a)(7) requires that majority owners of any license be Virgin Islands residents, defined here as someone who “has resided in the Territory for 10 of the last 15 years.” At least 51% of any licensed entity must be owned by residents under that definition.
Consumer side. OCR certifies medical cannabis practitioners, registers Qualified Patients and their caregivers, and processes out-of-state medical card registrations for visitors under § 776(iii). It writes the rules that govern daily purchase caps, non-resident fees, packaging, lab testing, and advertising.
OCR’s organizational chart
Act 8680 § 777 places the OCR inside DLCA, with a Director appointed by the Cannabis Advisory Board for a three-year term. The OCR is also supported by the Virgin Islands Cannabis Advisory Board (VICAB), a public-private board that recommends rules and policy. VICAB has eleven voting members plus the OCR Director ex officio. See our VICAB explainer for the board’s composition and current status.
Funding runs through a dedicated Cannabis Fund, which collects license and permit fees, penalty revenue, and a share of the 18% cannabis sales tax. The statute allocates cannabis tax revenue among the General Fund, public health and education programs, community reinvestment, and the OCR’s own operating budget.
Where the OCR stands as of August 2026
The Approved Rules and Regulations were certified by the Lieutenant Governor in May 2024, which started the statutory clock on applications. § 787(g)(1) requires OCR to publish the merit-based application scoring criteria no later than 60 days before each application deadline. Ten conditional dispensary licenses have been issued across the three islands (five on St. Thomas, three on St. John, two on St. Croix). No licensed dispensary has opened to the public yet. OCR has said regulated sales will begin in 2026. That is the moving operational figure every visitor and operator wants, and it is the figure worth checking closest to the date.
The open gap is on the Act 9072 side, and it narrowed twice this summer. The Cannabis Advisory Board reviewed a first draft of the Intoxicating Hemp Retailer rules on July 30, 2026, 109 days past the April 23 deadline Executive Director Joanne Moorehead set at the February 12 board meeting. OCR then published the draft and opened public comment, reported by Ganjactivist and Cannabis Business Times to close on September 15, 2026. The draft has not been adopted by the board, approved by the Governor, or promulgated, and until it is, no one can apply.
The draft is broader than the single license Act 9072 created. It adds Manufacturer, Distributor, and Transporter permits, exempts them from the retail caps, and would let a dispensary licensed under Act 8680 sell these products on a physically separated shelf. It sets no fees, deferring every one of them to a schedule OCR has not published. DLCA’s halt order on existing inventory remains in force, and OCR enforcement officers have begun compliance visits to licensed hemp retailers.
One statutory note that has gone unremarked: Act 9079, approved March 26, 2026, struck Act 9072’s Section 3 and replaced the open-ended inventory freeze with a 60-day reporting requirement and a 75-day sell-or-dispose window. Both windows have closed, and the disposition plan the amended section assigns to OCR has not been published.
What to watch
- OCR announcements on the first regulated dispensary opening. This is the milestone that actually matters.
- Quarterly VICAB meetings, which are public.
- Any change to the 45-day residency definition at point-of-sale, which affects every visitor transaction.
- The close of public comment on the draft Intoxicating Hemp Retailer rules, reported as September 15, 2026, and whether the board votes to adopt.
- The lawful disposition plan for unsold intoxicating hemp inventory that Act 9079 requires OCR to establish.