Pillars of the international cannabis community will be gathering in San Francisco, California on February 8, for the International Cannabis Business Conference (ICBC). Every ICBC is a meeting of the minds which features cannabis and hemp industry leaders, politicians and regulators, and others hoping to launch companies and their political careers.
Now, with the World Health Organization (WHO) calling for the rescheduling of not just CBD, but whole-plant cannabis, and, for the first time, cannabis being a topic at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 2019 looks like it could be the biggest year for international legalization yet.
Even before the WHO’s announcement and Davos, cannabis legalization had already spread to every continent on earth, other than Antarctica (which is effectively decriminalized as no treaties prohibit cannabis use there, though the laws of an individual’s home country still apply to them).
The cannabis continents
This first part of a two-part series will explore cannabis legalization in Africa, Australia, Europe, and North America.
Africa
In 2017, Lesotho became the first country in Africa to legalize the cultivation of medical cannabis and has since become an investor darling. Last year, Zimbabwe joined them, leading to what CNN called, “Africa’s weed race.”A few months later, South Africa’s Supreme Court legalized cannabis in the home country of the famous landrace strain, Durban Poison.
Australia
Even though Australia legalized medical cannabis in 2016, ABC News Australia reports that, more than two years later, it remains “pretty much inaccessible.” When The Leaf Online spoke to Cormac Sheehan, the CMO for the Australia Cannabis Company, about their hemp derived gin and plans to enter the nascent cannabis market, he provided some context about how inaccessible medical cannabis currently is.
“When I was researching it there were only about 150 patients in a country of 30 million people, it’s disgraceful,” said Sheehan, adding that it “is a very thorny area here at the moment with huge barriers to people accessing it.” Sheehan also mentioned the impact Canada has had down under, saying it was “really relevant” to Australians “that Canada is part of the former British Empire and a G7 nation.”
Europe
When most people think of legal cannabis in Europe, they think of Amsterdam and it’s famed coffee shops. While Amsterdam led the way on decriminalization, with their first coffee shop opening in 1975, licensed, legalized cannabis has largely stalled in the Netherlands. Despite that, the Netherlands is home to the GMP-certified cannabis cultivator, Bedrocan, who are working on “producing
Other than the Netherlands, Germany is perhaps the European country with the longest history of cannabis activism, going back to the 90s and the creation of the Hanf (Hemp) Museum. While, according to the German news broadcaster Deutsche Welle, medical cannabis has been legal in Germany since March 2017, the issuing of licenses has been delayed until later this year. For those attending the ICBC who are interested in learning more about cannabis in Germany, you should check out the International Markets panel featuring Ben Arn and Emmi Kotzian, moderated by Jamie Shaw.
Beyond the Netherlands and Germany, the Czech Republic legalized medical cannabis in 2013, but the market there has also stalled. Sean Carney, who works for Tilray, blames the slow growth on the lack of domestic cultivation.
The business community
Most recently, the small island nation of Cyprus created a very limited medical cannabis program in 2017. Just last year, the UK took the first steps towards reclassifying some cannabis-derived products to allow them to be prescribed by doctors. Ireland also took their first steps towards legalized medical cannabis in 2018, and now “Cannabis-based medicinal products are available in Northern Ireland.”
North America
Mexico led the way for North America, when 2015’s SMART decision legalized cannabis, but only for the parties involved in that suit. A couple years later, an extremely restrictive medical cannabis law was passed, but at least it allows for more than four people to legally use cannabis.
Canada followed Mexico’s lead, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promising legalization while on the campaign trail in 2015. It took them three years, but on October 17th, 2018, Canada joined Mexico and left the US in the dust as the only NAFTA member without some sort of federally-legal cannabis. While Canada wasn’t the first country to legalize cannabis, they are the first G7 nation to legalize cannabis at the federal level.
A driving force behind the growth and continued success of Canada’s medical and adult-use cannabis industries are US firms continued reliance on Canadian capital markets.
Paul Rosen, a Canadian investor and the CEO of Tidal Royalty, told The Leaf Online that “We’re leading the cannabis world in Canada, the capital of capital.” He explained that “Canada has attracted so much investment capital because we have a federally legal cannabis program while in the US it is still prohibited.”
Check back tomorrow to read Part II which will discuss cannabis legalization in Asia and South America.
— theLeafOnline.com Editors