Hopes for a more liberal approach to cannabis regulations from the Boris Johnson Government have risen with the appointment of two cannabis supporters to his team.

Blair Gibbs, former Policy Lead at the Centre for Medicinal Cannabis, who worked with the new Prime Minister when he was Mayor of London, has joined the No 10 Downing Street policy team. Where he will be working with fellow cannabis supporter Danny Kruger, the Prime Minister’s new Political Secretary, who has also called for an end to the prohibition of cannabis.

Tough Stance on Drugs

While the new PM says he enjoyed cannabis in his younger days he has since gone on to take a firm stance against decriminalization of most drugs.One of Mr Gibbs initial tasks may be to focus on establishing clearer regulations for the U.K. CBD industry which currently operates in a regulatory lacuna.

And, secondly, the frustrating situation where raw ingredient CBD – for use in all British retail CBD products – has to to be imported into the U.K.

CBD Regulations On The ‘To Do’ List?

In a recent interview with CBD Testers he expressed his irritation: “We have the perverse situation where farmers must pay the Home Office – the national security department of the British state – for a licence to grow hemp from a list of approved hemp seeds all of which have guarantees to certify they will produce no more than 0.2% THC.

“Once licensed, however, they are mandated to remove and destroy the most valuable part of the plant. That isn’t sustainable, and explains why the U.K. hemp sector is so small in stark contrast to the boom on the Continent. In practical terms there is nothing more radical that needs to happen than DEFRA and the Home Office jointly agreeing changes to the licensing conditions for hemp. A small change at a stroke would give the U.K. the ability to have a domestic hemp industry supplying CBD in to the U.K.”

At the CMC, Blair Gibbs worked with Government on devising clearer guidelines for the CBD industry telling CBD Testers we need to encourage the ‘the adoption of a credible and robust system of voluntarily self-regulation’ for the sector. He said: “I’m, not sue we quite have that yet.”

The Victorians Did Not Ban Everything

Having lived in Canada he is said to favor the Canadian Government’s legalization route recently posting the following on twitter. “When the UK gets round to legislating to regulate a legal market for recreational cannabis it will need to learn from other models but also devise one that fits its own culture and institutions best.”

Mr Kruger is a former speech wirier for ex-Prime Minister David Cameron, and in 2017 said: “We do not need to ban everything bad. After all the Victorians never prohibited alcohol.” Earlier this year CBD Testers reported how the British public is now in favor of cannabis legalization and some politicians believe it could happen within five years.