Business of Cannabis
Last week (April 27), the deadline for Greek industry stakeholders to have their say on a controversial new hemp ban expired.
The proposed legislation would impose a blanket ban on the sale of CBD flowers across the country, placing yet another European Union member state on the front lines of the perpetual ‘Hemp Wars’.
Closely mirroring what is now happening in the US, the new legislation is driven by the rapid spread of loosely regulated ‘intoxicating hemp’ products sold in vending machines and convenience stores across the country.
However, like its transatlantic counterpart, the proposed measures to crack down on these new substances overreach to such an extent that they threaten legal industrial hemp and CBD industries with near-extinction. Unlike the US, however, Greece is bound to EU law.
The Greek industry is confident that this ‘measure appears to conflict with the principle of the free movement of goods’. More pertinently, Greece’s own statutory advisory body found that it ‘moves against the European trend where CBD flower distribution is permitted under specific conditions.’
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