World

Thanks to some recent legislative changes, anyone wanting to purchase cannabis buds in Belgium can simply stop by the nearest tobacconist.

Cannatrek’s Seed to Patient business model combines cutting edge cultivation expertise and world class manufacturing practices to deliver high quality medicinal cannabis oil formulations and medicinal strains of dried flowers at a significantly lower cost to patients and retailers. Cannatrek is one of the first companies in Australia to hold federally approved medicinal cannabis licences to develop, cultivate, manufacture and research cannabis-based medication. Today, Cannatrek has large scale cultivation and processing projects moving ahead in Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales.

On 1 November 2018, the law was changed in Britain to allow clinicians on the General Medical Council’s (GMC) Specialist Register to be prescribed unlicensed cannabis products. The change in law was driven by the efforts of the families of Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell, two children who suffer from serious epilepsy.

LAS VEGAS, Oct. 31, 2019  -- One World Pharma Inc. (OWPC), “OWP,” a fully licensed pure-play cannabis and hemp ingredient producer in Colombia, today announced the upcoming launch of the cannabis industry’s first ‘Cannabis Futures’ program at their growing operations in Colombia.

iCAN: Israel-Cannabis, an Israeli cannabis incubator, and Los Angeles-based Headquarters (HQ), a cannabis license holder and product accelerator with distribution and manufacturing facilities, have formed a strategic partnership to identify the most innovative Israeli cannabis companies and products and give them access to the Californian market.

The two firms will work together to provide distribution, sales and marketing support to the relevant companies, iCAN said in a statement on Thursday.

China will emerge as the cannabis cultivating super power producing flower for as little a 10 cents a gram, a leading producer believes.

Speaking at the Cannabis Investor Forum in the City of London Oliver Zugel, Executive Chairman and co-founder of Colombian producer Foliumed, elaborated on how he sees the cultivation industry developing in China.

“Hemp outdoor cultivation in the U.K. is a short-lived business with just one crop a year, in Colombia we can get up to five harvests a year but the Chinese will be beating us on price within a few years.

“Cultivating under lights is not sustainable, the carbon footprint of such operations is horrible, something like three per cent of all California’s electricity is taken by the cannabis industry.”

Low-Cost Colombia

Colombia is one of the lowest-cost producers in the world with cannabis flowers being produced for around 50 cents per gram compared to $1.50 in Canada. Mr Zugel believes a global glut of CBD will drive prices down and described the current situation where CBD extract can be produced for $1.50 a gram and sold for $400 – in countries such as Germany – as unsustainable

“There is no other business like this at the moment, it makes no sense.”

He then turned his fire on those in the industry making unsubstantiated medical claims. “Now CBD can cure hair loss, impotency then there are the beauty claims;  the medical science needs to keep up, but these things are are not scientifically proven,  and do no favors to the business.

Markus Hoffman, Vice President of cannabis firm Jacana, says further research is vital to the continued success of the industry as it has had ‘a lost 80 years’.

Dramatic Price Falls

He contended: “No one can tell me what a cannabis plant does to humans; there are 140 cannabinoids and we understand two (CBD & THC), what about other 138?”

Panelists in a discussion on the ‘future of operating cannabis businesses’ supported the idea that it’s not the size of a business, but the ability to innovate that consumers appreciate. Jay Czarkowski, a Founding Partner of U.S. firm Canna Advisors, believes that cultivation will shift outdoors leading to ‘dramatic’ price falls.

His company has helped launch cannabis businesses in 18 U.S. states and he expressed his frustration at the federal illegality of cannabis in America.

“When that changes and the U.S is allowed to exports, look out Canada – its companies have still to make a profit and it’s a market of 36 millio while the U.S. in ten times its size.” But ,he went on to say that all investors should be looking to U.K. and Europe for a market which is twice the size of the United States.

Mexico has delayed marijuana legalization. The Supreme Court’s deadline for legalization was October 23. On October 18, the Senate committee unveiled the final bill, which was then being reviewed. However, the process will take a little longer because Mexico missed the deadline. Let’s see what happened.

In July 2016, the Colombian government enacted Law 1787, which regulates the use of medicinal cannabis and its trade in the country. With this decision and a series of subsequent resolutions, Colombia joined the more than a dozen countries that have put into practice different types of regulation to explore the advantages of this plant as an alternative pharmaceutical.

Minister of State in the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Floyd Green, says the growing global market for cannabis provides the opportunity for Jamaica to become a first-choice destination for travellers who want to use medical cannabis.

Mr. Green, who was speaking at the official opening of Apollon Formularies Limited in Westmoreland on October 25, said “the fact that Jamaica is already a world-renowned hospitality and tourism destination is a guaranteed formula for a successful cannabis industry”.

Right now, around 41 million people have access to recreational marijuana that's legal at a federal level. Two countries have legalized recreational pot -- Canada and Uruguay. We can't include the millions of Americans who live in the 11 states that have legalized recreational marijuana in our total since marijuana remains illegal at the federal level in the United States.