Category: Mark Taylor UK / EU Cannabis Compliance Blog

Canopy Growth’s pharmaceutical division, Spectrum Therapeutics, has been granted a license to import bulk medical cannabis into the United Kingdom, the UK Financial Times has reported.

The KK2020 campaign is driven by more than 200 activists in the country and about 20 small businesses support it. In particular, it organized pre-election interviews in the 2019 elections, with candidates in parliament.

Lab tests from the Centre for Medicinal Cannabis (CMC) in June found that 62 per cent of the UK high street products studied didn’t contain the CBD content promised on the label. One product (retailing for £90) had no measurable amount of the non-toxic cannabis compound at all.

“Government will be insisting on some principles, including a minimum legal age of 21, absolute prohibition [to smoke] in public places, as well as a user registration platform that protects users from criminal action and which controls dispensing,” Julia Farrugia Portelli, the parliamentary secretary piloting the reform told MaltaToday.

The cannabis involved in the Netherlands’ regulated cultivation experiment will be sold in “unattractive” and plain packaging. This is to make sure that people “who weren’t planning” to use cannabis aren’t tempted into trying it by interesting wrappers, NRC reports based on a proposal that contains the rules for the experiment. Reports the NL Times.

We thought you might enjoy the thought and also the interesting potted recent cultural history of cannabis in Greece

Marco Toni of Loyens & Loeff writes, ” According to the current regulatory set-up in Switzerland, it is permissible to sell and purchase cannabis products, as long as the THC level remains below 1%. As a consequence, the industry currently shows a specific interest in CBD products, i.e. cannabis products containing a low THC, but high cannabidiol level. The regulatory framework applicable to CBD products has to be determined by allocating the relevant products either to a specific product category, such as medical products, ingestible products, utility products (incl. cosmetics) or tobacco products (incl. tobacco substitutes), or to a catch-all group of non-categorised products.”

Some of the latest cannabis and hemp updates from Europe

Do we sense a pattern? In the US state by state cannabis is being regulated whilst DC dithers. In Europe we see a similar patter emerging with the smaller jurisdictions taking a more proactive view of regulated cannabis. Isle of Man, Malta, Luxembourg & Jersey are some examples. And now politicians in big cities are actively looking at ways to decriminalize cannabis. Yesterday we reported on Siobhan Benita, the Lib Dem candidate for next year’s mayoral election in London. Today Grizzle report on developments in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.

The Guardian has reported, “Siobhan Benita, the Lib Dem candidate for next year’s election, said the idea of legalising the drug was “no longer controversial” and the serious crime in the capital meant it was the right place for the idea to be trialled.”

Nearly 50 per cent of people living in Scotland support the legalisation of cannabis, a poll for The Times found.

U.K. investors in cannabis-related entities, where the activity is legal in its jurisdiction but not legal in the U.K., risk committing money laundering offences under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA). However –

“The cannabidiol-based treatment Epidiolex has won a positive recommendation for marketing approval from a European Medicines Agency (EMA) panel for use as an additional treatment for two types of seizures.” Writes The European Pharmaceutical Review.