On Tuesday, James Austin-Smith, representing Doctors Express at a judicial review investigating the 2019 raid of the medical facility, condemned the customs officers involved in the seizure of legal medical-grade cannabinoid medicines as well as other government officials who were behind the raid. He presented evidence to the court that put a spotlight on the controversial warrant that enabled the raid as well as the dubious practices of both Customs and Border Control (CBC) officers and Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Lee.
Austin-Smith argued that the warrant for the raid had been obtained illegally from a justice of the peace. The JP, represented by Amelia Fosuhene, was not present at the judicial review due to illness; according to Fosuhene, the justice of the peace was misled by CBC officers who lacked the necessary evidence proving that a crime was underway at Doctors Express.
Moreover, Austin-Smith found that the senior customs officer involved in obtaining the warrant was aware that the warrant was unnecessary. Misrepresentation, not evidence, enabled the warrant to go through. The lawyer compared his findings to the unlawful warrant involved in the Royal Cayman Islands Police case Operation Tempura, introducing a whiff of corruption to the court proceedings.
Also under fire was the cease and desist memo issued by Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Lee a few days before the raid took place. This memo contained an order to physicians to stop prescribing and dispensing legal cannabis vaping products to patients. As an explanation for his opposition to the medicine, Dr. Lee asserted a need for deeper investigation into the safety and efficacy of cannabis-based medicines.
Austin-Smith pointed out that Dr. Lee’s stop notice to doctors emerged only after the customs department had contacted the CMO and requested his assistance with matters involving the importation of cannabis. Soon after this communication took place between CBC and Dr. Lee, the CMO issued the memo that ordered registered doctors to stop the legal prescribing of cannabis oils and vaping products.
Legislation at this time permitted the prescription and the sale of medical-grade cannabis oils and tinctures, but Samuel Banks, the owner of Doctors Express, had received word from the CMO that Banks’s authorizing his physicians to prescribe, sell, and advertise the medicine had upset some unnamed individuals. These individuals worked with the CMO to create the cease and desist memo.
According to Austin-Smith, the Health Practice Commission (HPC) is also complicit in this matter as the HPC is the medical oversight body that influences opinions about the use of medical-grade cannabis in this case. The HPC had drafted the cease and desist memo at CBC’s request, which Chief Medical Officer Dr. Lee then signed and approved for distribution.
Two days before the raid, Doctors Express had invited customs officials to their medical facility so that CBC officers could see the legal cannabis products, which the offices had obtained with an import licence from the Chief Medical Officer. No one responded to the invitation. Also at this time, the memo containing the stop notice was distributed amongst members of the medical community, but Doctors Express did not receive the notice until the day of the raid itself.
On the day of the raid, fifteen customs officers, some of whom were equipped with weapons, appeared at the Doctors Express offices in order to confiscate the medical-grade cannabis oils and vaping products. The raid took place while patients were meeting with their physicians.
Austin-Smith deduced from the sequence of events and other findings that the errors involved in the raid were made deliberately and that customs officers knew they were seizing legal cannabis oil and vaping products from the medical facility.
Doctors Express seeks an admission from government authorities stating the illegality of both the warrant and the raid. As well, the medical facility desires action on the part of the government that will mitigate the negative effects of the damage done to their reputation by the raid, which was conducted in the full view of patients receiving care from Doctors Express physicians.
The medical facility also seeks financial compensation, for legal costs as well as for the costs involved in replacing the cannabis products that were damaged while in CBC custody for nearly a year.
Eventually, Doctors Express was cleared of wrongdoing as the raid became widely regarded as illegal, but neither the owner of Doctors Express nor the urgent care facility itself have received an apology from the government agencies involved. Moreover, the authorities have not admitted that they were in the wrong.
Justice Macmillan of the Grand Court will continue to hear the case as proceedings carry on.
