UK Edition
Foreign cannabis firms set up shop in UK hoping the drug will be legalised for recreational use
Foreign cannabis companies are setting up in the UK in the hope the drug will be legalised for recreational as well as medicinal use, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
Although the Government has repeatedly stated that it has no intention of legalising cannabis for recreational use, many believe laws will eventually be relaxed, opening a lucrative new market for international cannabis companies.
North American firms are selling medicinal cannabis, which was legalised in November, and CBD cannabis oil, which is legal because it does not contain the psychoactive substance in cannabis, THC.
Some of the companies operating in the UK also sell cannabis for recreational use in Canada, where the drug is legal, and America, where it is legal in some states.
This week, executives from cannabis companies from across the world will converge on London for the Cannabis Europa Conference, which will address the market for selling cannabis products in Europe.
A panel featuring Norman Lamb and Crispin Blunt, both MPs interested in drug policy, will be chaired by Andrew Neil.
George Kruis, an England and Saracens rugby player, who runs a CBD oil business, will also be in attendance.
Canopy Growth, one of the world’s largest cannabis companies, recently bought Wimbledon-based skincare and wellbeing brand This Works for more than £40m, and plans to use it to sell CBD products in the UK.
The company said it would have an “accelerated focus on global expansion and product development to include a new line of skincare and sleep solution products infused with CBD.”
Canopy Growth also owns an Oxford-based company that encourages specialist doctors to prescribe medicinal cannabis to their patients.
Back in Canada, where Canopy Growth is based, it runs a company that sells fashionably-branded tubs of cannabis, which users smoke to get high.
Wayland Group, a Canadian company with a subsidiary that sells super-strength cannabis it advertises as “not for the weak”, recently bought a small company in the UK it plans to use to import medicinal cannabis.
It will pay the company £24 million if it secures a licence.
In February, Aurora, a Canadian company with a division that sells high-THC pre-rolled joints, exported its first shipment of medicinal cannabis to the UK.
The company described itself as “one of the first Canadian companies to commercially supply cannabis-based medicines into the UK under the new legal framework,” which was introduced in November.
Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of the NHS, last month warned that the UK was at risk of making a “big mistake” by “normalising drug use” by legalising medicinal cannabis.
“I think we have to be careful, as we have a legitimate national debate on medical cannabis, that we don’t look back in a decade’s time and wonder whether we inadvertently made a big mistake,” he told the Royal Society of Medicine.
“We must not be naive in pretending that there isn’t a whole industry just waiting to expand their ‘addressable market’ for drugs in this country,” he said.
Sir Norman Lamb, a Liberal Democrat MP who supports legalised cannabis, described a law change on recreational marijuana as “inevitable”.
“It is self evident that where cannabis has been legalised for medicinal purposes, it does have this effect of normalising it, because it takes away the fear of something that is dangerous and illegal and supplied by criminals,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“There’s clearly a significant overlap. There are companies involved in both markets and there’s a really fascinating global change just happening before our eyes.
“Across Europe, one country after another is opening up the medicinal market, and players from North America in particular are looking at the European market.”
Cannabis is a Class B drug, and possessing or selling cannabis products that contain THC, the drug’s psychoactive compound that makes users feel “high”, is illegal.
Cannabis products that do not contain THC, but have a second ‘CBD’ compound, are legal in the UK.
CBD products have become popular in recent years, with companies selling CBD coffee, chocolate, skin creams, tablets and oil.
Medicinal cannabis has been legal in the UK since the law change in November 2018.
It must be prescribed by a specialist doctor and is only recommended for a few medical conditions, including severe epilepsy.
Other conditions for which medicinal cannabis can be prescribed include spasticity from multiple sclerosis and nausea from chemotherapy treatments.
Companies must have a licence from the Home Office to import cannabis-based pharmaceutical products into the UK.
NHS England has said “very few people in England are likely to get a prescription for medical cannabis”.
“A prescription for medical cannabis would only be given when it was believed to be in your best interests, and when other treatments hadn't worked or weren't suitable,” it said.
NHS England has told patients not to ask their doctors for medicinal cannabis unless they have a condition for which it has been recommended.