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Author: Marguerite Arnold

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Morocco Passes Medical Cannabis Use Legislation

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Medical.

The African country passes highly controversial legislation in part to create sustainable agriculture for its citizens

Bill number 13.21 passed the Moroccan Parliament in the first week of June. The bill had been highly contentious all the way through passage, both domestically and right next door in Algeria. Regardless, medical cannabis is now legal in another country in Africa which hopes to capitalize on at least medical reform to provide incomes for its farmers.

Indeed, Interior Minister Abdel-Wafi Laftit, who introduced the bill, called on both domestic and international organizations, including the UN, to integrate the development of the drug for the benefit of sustainable economic development in the most impoverished parts of the country.

Cannabis In Africa

The entire topic of cannabis in Africa has been one that has moved forward in fits and starts depending on where one is.

In South Africa and Lesotho (which is surrounded by the larger country), medical cannabis reform has proceeded over the last several years to the point that multiple firms have now begun certified cultivation and are proceeding through the certification processes for at least export if not a bit more than that – particularly on the hemp front.

Uganda has already exported cannabis to Israel.

Zimbabwe’s government has also just changed the law to allow private investors, including those from overseas, to own 100% of their investments without any forced government participation and ownership.

Cannabis has come (back) to Africa.

Implications

There are many implications for the development of the plant in the African continent – and further that go beyond just direct investment in production. 

The first is the development of low water and energy production methods. 

The second is the discovery of new Landrace cannabis strains.

How specific countries develop their cannabis production and extraction pipelines both for domestic consumption and export even within Africa is another discussion – but further one that at this point is well underway.

So is the export of cannabis to Europe (which has already begun even if in small trickles) – both in terms of raw product – and beyond that – inexpensive flower and even extract bound for markets still starved for affordable product.

Be sure to book your tickets now for the International Cannabis Business Conference – which returns to Berlin in August!

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Is Boris Johnson’s Government About To Do Right By Cannabis?

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Medical.

The government task force examining how to regulate the industry suggests that the Home Office is not the best place to stick the cannabis industry – but not much else.

Sadly, Monty Python is not still doing skits lampooning British culture and government anymore. Or even Spitting Image. Regardless, and even without caricature to highlight the worst idiocies, the trajectory of British cannabis reform so far has been laughably cartoonish (where it has not also cost lives and of course been equally Dickensian.)

All of this makes sense of course when one realizes that so far, it has been the British Home Office – a large department that covers many unpleasant things about British life that cannot be called anything vaguely societally acceptable – that has handled all things cannabinoid from a policy perspective.

That now is about to change.

According to several paragraphs about halfway through the Final Report by the very officially named Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform presented recently to the Prime Minister, there needs to be a reform of the entire system in the UK. Further, that the regulation of medical cannabinoids should move to the Department of Health and Social Care as well as the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

That said, the change in cannabinoid policy appears to be an afterthought, and further, tacked on a document that is heavy on the Brexit cheerleading and lacking a bit on fact-based reality – even about its characterization of the cannabis industry generally in the much-despised EU next door.

This starts with a characterization of all of this innovation now being allowed to flourish under the rubric of Brexit – if not setting the vaunted British Isles free of the “regulation of the continent.”

While there is clearly a problem with regulation in the cannabis industry – namely a lack of a clear, cohesive policy on the same in any country in Europe – there are a few countries well ahead of the UK on cannabis policy which is further allowed by the flexibility of being part of the EU.

Further, it is one thing to tout fundamental medical reform on this score and another to achieve it – no matter whether one is a country or an “island.” See Canada, where even after patients won the right to access the drug under a Supreme Court order, it took another 12 years to finally implement government agencies tasked with that kind of oversight.

So, while there is clearly regulatory change afoot for the industry that is likely to clarify the status of cannabinoids – at least as a medical drug – don’t expect anything so earth-shaking as say, Portugal, a member of the EU (or beyond that Luxembourg) are doing as of 2022. Or even Germany, which legalized the drug for medical purposes right around Brexit was being decided at the polls.

But you have to give them their due. The Brexiteers finally found cannabinoids. Now let’s see what they really do with them.

Be sure to book your tickets to the next International Cannabis Business Conference when it returns this summer to Berlin!

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Here Comes Portugal: Adult Use Bill Brought Before Parliament

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Politics.

Cannabis reform is not staying still across the EU

As Europe begins to wake up to the reality that two countries within and just outside its border (Luxembourg and Switzerland) are about to give the region its “Colorado and Washington State” moment – Portugal appears to want to up the ante even more.

In a move highly anticipated by insiders, and just before a summer of intermittent travel corridors and mutating summer holiday plans along with new variants of Covid, the Portuguese also seem determined to have their moment in the sun.

However, the Portuguese situation is also not likely to be like any of the other discussions going on in Europe at the moment. This starts with the fact that the government has been playing with the idea of drug liberalization and lassaiz faire drug reform for the last fifty years in a way unseen in any other European state.

The timing of this discussion – literally to carve out and define a national policy on adult-use – is also far from accidental.

This development means that three countries within Europe (the other two are Holland and Luxembourg) plus Switzerland are now formally debating if not implementing adult-use market guidelines and policies.

This is a tipping point. Even if the German government (for one) along with the French and Spanish, would rather ignore the entire enchilada.

Where Does This Leave Germany?

There is much speculation within the country if not beyond its borders about the impact of the national election this year on cannabis normalization. That said, while it is likely that the political winds are likely to elicit some reform (see perhaps decriminalization) it is unlikely that full boat recreational use will be on the table here for the next five years.

In the meantime, experimental and feeder markets (Greece, Malta, North Macedonia) beyond these recreational outliers, are clearly beginning to define medical cultivation markets that will feed tax coffers and create green jobs. At some point, there will be a Deutsch tipping point. The question, of course, is what might cause this. And when it might come.

Medical markets will only continue to push the topic forward – and of course bigger economic issues – like Post Pandemic recovery – will also feed into the debate.

Regardless, for advocates and the industry alike, the summer of 2021 is turning out to be a good one for pushing the theoretical idea of reform forward, if not exactly the mechanics, in countries across the region like never before.

Be sure to book your tickets to the International Cannabis Business Conference when it returns to Berlin this August!

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The Summer Of Love – And Cannabis Reform

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Politics.

As the world opens up again, the idea of cannabis reform is clearly in the room like never before. Will the summer of 2021 be the tipping point for regional and federal reform?

Much has been made of the fact that people are coming out of their Covid shells and planning to party like it is 1999. Or 1921. Or even 1967.

There are clearly cultural, psychological, and political responses to being locked down, socially distanced, in a global pandemic, dead ahead.

Full and final cannabis reform, like other big and much-delayed topics such as climate change and sustainable economics, is now not a negotiation in terms of whether it will happen, but when.

The question is, in a new and more canna friendly world, what will change fundamentally, where, and what will just be inserted as a safe political giveaway in a world where most things are not working the way they used to.

European Reform

European states are beginning to move in a direction that is reminiscent of the United States circa 2014 – namely medical efficacy is basically in the room if not the most popular topic of federal legislators. But beyond this, the outliers, inevitably, are beginning to make the recreational discussion unavoidable, and in a way that cannot just be dismissed as “That is just the Dutch.”

This is likely to trickle through for the next several years as recreational markets are set up and tweaked, but it is highly significant.

North American Reform

Joe Biden may still want to duck the issue, but the United States is likely to face up to inevitability at least by the time the present administration goes up for re-election. The moving discussion in Europe, plus the maturation of the Canadian market (for starters) makes this almost inevitable.

Reform Elsewhere

With the entire debate moving in the US and Europe, other feeder states are likely to also begin to move the conversation – particularly in Asia. Australia and New Zealand may not move forward on anything other than seeding their own domestic medical market and lining up for exports to the rest of the world – but it is unlikely that things will slow down, down under either.

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German Cannabis Reform Moves Forward In Curious Ways

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Politics.

A new poll suggests a majority of Germans support the medical use of cannabis as the city of Dusseldorf removes its ban on hemp products. Is more reform on the way?

The German cannabis reform discussion is clearly progressing – but it is proceeding slowly and in curious ways. Unlike in other countries, the driver of reform here is both federal and medical – meaning that the plant as medicine must be slotted into existing pharmaceutical and medical procedures. The reason is that Germany changed its law in 2017 to mandate that cannabis as medicine must be compensated by public health insurance if prescribed by a doctor.

Since then, the battle has raged, and in different ways and different levels. Patients are still fighting to get basic access. However, on the hemp and CBD front, things have stayed strange. Part of the reason is that many German authorities are hostile, generally, to the idea of cannabis reform – even on a local level (as seen in the United States, frequently over the last thirty years of cannabis reform). See California as a perfect example of the same.

However, in the German version of the same, it is hemp that authorities attacked first – in part because the regulated hemp market has clearly staked out territory that appears to be intimidating to those who oppose all kinds of cannabis reform. Indeed, the city of Dusseldorf banned hemp sales – a move which has just been successfully overturned in court. That said, the company involved still had to bear the legal costs.

A new survey by the German research institute Civey has found that 43% of Germans believe that cannabis should only be legal for medical purposes. Only 36% believe that it should be fully legalized, regulated, and taxed. That said, of the 15% who still believe that cannabis should be illegal for all purposes, the vast majority believe that those who use the drug should also be punished.

These numbers, however, seem very familiar to Americans if not Canadians who watched the entire conversation if not poll numbers like these flip drastically upon the introduction of recreational state markets – starting with Colorado and Washington State as of 2014.

As of this April, a Pew Research Center poll found that as of this year a whopping 90% of Americans want Prohibition to end and either medical and or recreational cannabis to be legal. This has changed drastically in the last decade. As of 2011, only 50% of Americans supported cannabis reform, according to Gallup.

Be sure to book your tickets to the International Cannabis Business Conference when it returns to Europe this summer!

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Will The British Parliament Finally Pass Meaningful Cannabis Reform?

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Politics.

Sixty Members of Parliament call for reform of 50-Year-old UK Drugs’ Law

There is clearly a clarion call to change British cannabis policy right now – and it is emanating from increasingly senior politicians. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has recently advocated for at least the decriminalization of cannabis in the capitol, along with a review of how police respond to minor possession.

Beyond this, however, there is yet another call at the federal level, in Parliament, for a review of the by now 50-year-old law making cannabis illegal, and further, unequivocally calling the current law “a disaster.” The Misuse of Drugs Act was passed in 1971.

Millions of British Users

According to data gathered by researchers, there are at least 2.5 million British cannabis users – although again this is a mixture of people who have conditions that cannabis is used to treat as well as users of the “recreational” or “adult use” kind. It is impossible to tell how many actual users there are (and for whatever purpose) in part because the entire vertical is still basically illegal. It is now possible to obtain a British cannabis prescription that is reimbursed by the NHS, but it is very difficult – plus now impossible for chronic pain patients to do so.

That said, cannabis as an economic boon is clearly a topic of some interest in the UK – starting with economic development projects on the Channel Islands. There is, in other words, increasing logic, and from the public health vs. law enforcement kind as well as the strictly economic variety, that says that cannabis reform is in the offing in Brexited Britain.

The question is, how much, and of what kind?

Here are three places where the emerging British cannabis market is going to have impact – both at home and abroad.

The Great British Medical Export

Cannabis has been a staple of British exports for some time. See GW Pharma. However, over the past several years, increasing numbers of firms have begun to set up both cultivation and extraction facilities. Those are coming online now – even if the Channel Islands may be “exporting” as much to the British mainland as they do elsewhere.

The CBD Conversation

The UK is currently going a bit bonkers over CBD reform because well, it is better than nothing. In the meantime, there are important conversations this approach is opening – like the regulation of the market on the cultivation and extraction if not labelling front. See Novel Food.

The London Equity Markets

No matter what else is going on, London is undoubtedly going to emerge as a strong player in the international equity markets for cannabis raises. Where they might be challenged on the continent is unclear (Switzerland, Luxembourg and still perhaps the Deutsche Börse). But the LSE is clearly in the game now.

Be sure to book your tickets to the International Cannabis Business Conference when it returns to Berlin in August 2021 for a full overview of changing cannabis regulation across Europe and the UK.

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French Move Forward On CBD Cultivation

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Medical.

Could hemp become as French as frogs’ legs and brie?

It may be a bit too early to break out the champagne, but things are certainly appearing to move on the hemp front in France.

According to Le Figaro, the government is coming to an end of its six month plan to reverse the ban on hemp production. This comes after last November’s decisions that CBD is not a narcotic and further that the French-specific ban on so-called “Cannabis-Lite” – namely containing less than 0.2% THC could not be upheld.

The new regulations will authorize the industrial and commercial cultivation of hemp as well as the import and export of the plant. Significantly, the French legislation stretches to all parts of the hemp plant – provided that the THC is at the European level of tolerance for the same.

However, it is not all smooth sailing. Specifically, the sale and marketing of raw flowers for use in smoking or making tea will be specifically prohibited. This is being justified on the basis of “protecting public health.”

According to authorities, raw flowers are too often smoked – and further authorizing their consumption for any purpose would make it harder for the police to determine whether cannabis they come across is legitimate (hemp) or not.

The drafting of the new order is due to be finalized soon, according to the French media, whereupon it must be sent to the European Commission. The other European States will then have a six-month comment period before the new framework becomes legal.

What Does This Mean for Cannabis France as well as CBD Europe?

Clearly, the advance of the industrial hemp industry in France is a victory. That it is coming so soon after the initiation of the country’s first comprehensive medical trial kick-off is also encouraging. 

However, the ban on raw flowers is a disturbing trend. 

Many patients (for example) use raw flower for many purposes (including home extraction of cannabinoids in either tea or oil).

In France, unlike Germany, flower is certainly being put to the test. However, it is also clear that the French are taking cues from other countries in an effort to contain the entire conversation as one of a manufacturing or medical one. 

How successful they will ultimately be, particularly given Luxembourg’s initiation of a recreational market by the end of the year remains to be seen.

One thing is clear. If France has been forced to move on CBD and medical use of cannabis, Europe is beginning to have its own watershed conversation about the plant uniformly and not just one country at a time.

Be sure to catch up on the latest moving developments in cannabis legalization when the International Cannabis Business Conference returns to Berlin this August!

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Medical Cannabis Approved For Production And Sales In Greece

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Medical.

The sunny, Mediterranean country holds great promise for the cultivation and extraction of cannabis products bound for the rest of Europe.

Move over Portugal! According to local English-language media, The Greek Reporter, the Greek Parliament finally approved a bill to legalize the cultivation and sale of medical marijuana in Greece (on Friday). The bill passed 158 to 33 with opposition only from the Communist Party of Greece, the Greek Solution and the MeRA 25 Party (supported by Greek superstar economist Yanis Varoufakis).

The bill, called the “Production, extraction and distribution of final products of pharmaceutical cannabis of the species Cannabis Sativa L (with over 0.2% THC)” was submitted initially by the Greek department of Development and Investment and has ticked along all spring.

What Happens Now?

For those who might be confused (since Greece initially passed a medical marijuana bill in 2018 to begin to allow medical cultivation), this new bill is intended to expedite the process for obtaining licenses for medical marijuana production and facilitate investment in the domestic industry. Indeed, government spokespersons have commented already that the intent of the law is to create an integrated framework for the development of the cannabis industry in Greece – specifically for the purpose of job creation and by encouraging investment in the country.

However, beyond this, there are still outlying issues that need to be fixed. Specifically, as of Friday, there were already domestic critics who were calling foul – namely that the process of reform has been “incomplete.” Namely, the Syriza Party is going to attempt to amend the bill to propose that the application process for a license should also enable producers to sell to domestic patients and further, provide products in both raw flower and extract form.

The Greek Domino and Its Impact on Europe

With Greece now officially moving forward with cannabis as a tool of economic development, it is unlikely that other European governments will sit on the sidelines for long. Indeed, even France is moving forward on a CBD cultivation bill.

The days of Prohibition are indeed coming to an end in Europe. And it is also very likely that, just like Greece, a formerly verboten plant will become instead a tool of governments to make lives better.

If there is a cannabis theme of the 2020’s it is likely to be this, particularly in Europe. Cannabis is being reintegrated into the continent. And the economies of its countries, as well as its peoples, will never be the same again.

Be sure to book your tickets now to the International Cannabis Business Conference when it returns to Europe in August.

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The Dutch Medical Cannabis Industry Bands Together To Counter Misinformation

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Medical.

A new website, launched to counter myths in the industry, is being supported by the official Dutch medical supply chain. Why can’t this happen in other places?

Click on the website of the Institut of Medicinale Cannabis and you know you have encountered a “serious” website for the industry. For one thing, its sponsors are some of the best-known cannabis names both globally and more locally, starting with Bedrocan.

The second is that it translates to English smoothly.

All jokes aside, it is clear that the coalition of companies and non-profits behind the site mean business. Namely that they want to dispel myths about what medical cannabis is – and is not. Including the assertion that GMP grade (or pharmaceutical standard) cannabis is NOT like what you are likely to encounter in coffee shops.

It is an interesting campaign, coming as it does on the heels of a federal attempt to finally regulate the coffee shop grows domestically. And certainly, given the importance of Holland as the go-to source of exported cannabis (from Israel to Germany and the UK).

The information on the site is valid and necessary (indeed it is a wonder why the German industry has not done a similar thing yet). 

Regardless, it is a site that has its work cut out for it. 

To the average consumer, including patients, the concept of GMP is an amorphous one. So is the idea of “controlled dosing” – no matter how much that conversation is now absolutely in the room, and in a big way.

Medical or Recreational ish?

The reality is in Holland that this discussion is hard to have. That starts with the fact that the average patient, who, thanks to a reform in Dutch law as of 2017, cannot get their medical cannabis reimbursed via health insurance (as theoretically is possible at least in Germany next door). 

Faced with the prospect of potential mold or contaminants, or constant pain because GMP grade meds are either too expensive or too inconvenient (or both), it is not hard to understand that the average patient will find another safer source or grow themselves.

However, Holland is just a testing ground for what is about to start happening across the rest of Europe as both Luxembourg and Switzerland embark on their own recreational experiments. And as Germany re-examines the success (and many fails) so far of its medical one.

And as a result, this is a conversation if not party that at heart, is actually just getting started.

Be sure to book your tickets for the International Cannabis Business Conference when it returns to Berlin in August, 2021!