Tag Archives: Isles

The British Isles Sees Cannabis as an Economic Development Pathway

By Marguerite Arnold
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Cannabis as a tool of local or even regional economic development has rapidly gained traction in many jurisdictions within the United States and Canada. It has also caught on particularly in the poorer states of the EU (see Greece) and those countries hoping to enter the Union (North Macedonia).

These days, the concept is also spreading even to the UK, where reform has lagged significantly behind other countries both in North America and Europe. Indeed, two island communities are now investing heavily in the idea that cannabis is not only here to stay, but may invigorate communities and the economic health of islands looking for a new path, post-Brexit.

Cannabis so far, certainly in the United States and Canada, has proved to be a job creator just about everywhere for the past five years. Indeed, despite a few large corporate restructurings (see Aurora and Canopy Growth) of late, the industry itself has not slowed down, even with bumps in the road in terms of full and final legalization and the new challenges of a global pandemic.

House Of Green, Guernsey
This project is moving along, with its first harvest set for later in the year. The ₤2 million facility plans to be able to process up to 800 pounds every eight-hour day. Raw product is being grown at vineyards on the island itself by independent farmers and partners from other islands. Indeed, it is a unique facility on the European side of the Atlantic.

The company plans to process cannabis into tinctures, balms and salves as well as alkaline waters.

The idea is to create the base ingredients from which other products – bound both for the medical and recreational market – can be made.

Vecticanna, Isle of Wight
Just off the southern coast of the UK, Vecticanna is also embarking on an ambitious project – a fully solar-powered facility which plans to eventually employ 60 people. Their mission? To “unlock the therapeutic potential of cannabis” for the treatment of Fibromyalgia and related conditions.

Vecticanna has partnered with several large institutions, including the University of Southampton, and CAR Laboratories in Cambridge, and plans to produce its products in an R&D and research setting with the ambitious hope of furthering the potential of cannabinoid-based healthcare.

Where Goes UK and European Reform?

Reform across Europe has indeed been frustratingly slow. This includes the many hiccups in the German cultivation bid, which was first launched in 2017, and will only see the first nationally produced cannabis in the country sometime this fall. That amount is far too little for the patients who have already obtained prescriptions, and certainly will not be enough to serve the expected million plus patients in market here in just a few short years. Indeed, medical cannabis distributors in Germany are scouring the planet right now for properly certified product that comes from other European countries as well as South Africa, Australia, and even Latin America.

In the meantime, a new generic producer of dronabinol (synthetic THC) has just gained access to the German market.

In the UK, reform so far has also been torturously tortoise-like, with the National Health Service (NHS) favouring local producer GW Pharmaceuticals and forcing all other patients and their families to import pricey product from the Netherlands or Canada. While, it should also be added, excluding chronic pain patients.

Why Are The UK’s Island Cannabis Projects So Intriguing?

With a few exceptions (see Greece and Malta), European cannabis development remains mired in complications that include everything from a lack of reform and high prices to fights over basic regulations, including whether cannabis is a “novel” substance or not. This has slowed down the ability of growers to obtain the right certifications, find financing and actually go into business.

With two new producers on islands close to Europe and the UK however, there appear to be projects on the horizon which have jumped the regulatory queue, and are lining up for an intriguing future, supported from the ground up, by local policies that are looking at two simple things: the efficacy of the plant itself, and the economic well-being of their neighbors.

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Canopy Growth Announces UK Expansion

By Marguerite Arnold
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On December 28, 2018, Canopy made the unsurprising announcement that it would begin exporting medical cannabis to the UK. The move comes shortly after the formation of Beckley Canopy, the research effort founded in partnership with the Beckley Foundation and Amanda Fielding, the woman who has continued to pioneer the field of cannabinoid research, and the announcement that Canopy will jumpstart medical trials here.

The two events are also connected, as the company will most likely start its export direct to the trials now planned and in general for research purposes as well as pharmacies, based on doctor’s orders.

Impact On The UK Market

Canopy of course, is now in a race with several other Canadian firms to establish market presence both on the trial and patient front. Tilray, Namaste and Wayland Group have all lined up to enter the market, if not having secured first patient orders. That said, entry will be slow for all, namely because of import regulations that may well still go off the cliff because of Brexit.

Intriguingly, however, the Canadians are not the only ones now in the ring. And the “Irish Question” is becoming even more of a potential source of cannabis. That became obvious in the aftermath of an announcement for additional funding and a 25% equity stake in Dublin-based Greenlight Medicines by SOL Global, a Canadian-listed company. Greenlight has already established an extensive network of not only researchers but has a reach at this point to over 1,000 pharmacies across the UK and Ireland.

Bottom line? Look for discussions on access to be fundamentally caught up in the impending, larger political discussions that are still deadlocked, with no certainty in site.And while so far at least, Scotland has remained quiet on the discussion, along with Wales and Cornwall, these are also places domestically in the UK where there could be new cultivation operations coming shortly.

Why? Wales is the “duchy” of none other than the Prince of Wales, Charles, the man who will be the next king of England. For most of his life, he has been pilloried for his ideas about alternative healthcare and organic farming. However, he also owns vast lands in Wales that support him, supported by rents, that are likely, in the near future, to switch to cannabis farming. Whatever reluctance he might have had to take the plunge, this is likely to change course with the next generation when he becomes king. Oversight of the management of all of this bounty will switch to his son, William. And this is a no-brainer, beyond of course, the fact that his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Sussex (Meghan Markle) already has a cannabis brand named after her.

Apart from this political and Royal twist, look for cannabis farming to occur in places like Cornwall, which has temperate weather brought by the Gulf Stream, a tourist economy and a desperate need, like many parts of the UK, for urban renewal. A high tech, high worth agricultural injection, in other words, is just what these parts of the country need.

Scotland, still, is an unanswered question mark, but it is unlikely that much growing will occur in the northern climes. That said, with cannabis production (of all sorts) beginning to wake up, there is no reason that the processing question will escape this part of the British Isles.That also means that calls for domestic cannabis to be grown in the UK itself could become much louder.

What Impact Will Brexit Really Have On Cannabis?

There is no way to really understand this question until the dust settles with negotiations that now have the potential to disrupt all trade between the UK and the rest of the world, including the Republic of Ireland. Ports and transportation through them are facing major disruption. Preparations for an off the cliff exit far beyond cannabis, have also been repeatedly criticized as being far too little, too late.

Bottom line? Look for discussions on access to be fundamentally caught up in the impending, larger political discussions that are still deadlocked, with no certainty in site.

That also means that calls for domestic cannabis to be grown in the UK itself could become much louder. Along with an impetus for greater reform.

Regardless, this drug, so often just below the surface of international affairs for so long, is clearly going to be in the room in larger political discussions now unfolding in the UK.

Impact On National Healthcare

British people, since the end of WWII, have had access to free healthcare thanks to the NHS. That said, after a decade of austerity, the system is now facing crisis unseen since the war. There are 100,000 doctor vacancies at the so-called “Trusts” across the UK which manage regional healthcare. Waiting times even for lifesaving operations are at an all-time high. And approvals for drugs, especially like cannabis, which fall into the territory of “special approval” across Europe are also caught in the mix.

UKflagAs in other countries, in other words, while the news of exports beginning to enter the market is good for patients and the industry beyond that, it is just a start to a longer battle that is still playing out across Europe.

That said, there is another issue in the room that is also absolutely on the table and will be part of the medical cannabis conversation going forward. Digital healthcare–and of all kinds–is being touted as the solution to doctor and service shortages. Look for innovative cannatech solutions in particular that target this market in particular, in the near future.

In the meantime, the green trickle has begun. That said, given all that is at stake and on the table, there are many questions in the room about when the flood will actually take off.