{"id":24340,"date":"2018-03-10T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-03-10T20:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2018\/03\/10\/un-report-uk-is-top-legal-cannabis-producer\/"},"modified":"2018-03-10T12:52:47","modified_gmt":"2018-03-10T20:52:47","slug":"un-report-uk-is-top-legal-cannabis-producer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2018\/03\/10\/un-report-uk-is-top-legal-cannabis-producer\/","title":{"rendered":"UN Report: UK Is Top Legal Cannabis Producer"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

A United Nations study brings back the surprise finding that the world\u2019s biggest producer of legal cannabis is Great Britain. The answer to this seeming anomaly lies in one UK-based multinational corporation with industrial-scale grow operations for production of pharmaceuticals.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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M<\/span>any observers of the industry were surprised by the findings of the\u00a0annual report\u00a0issued this week by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), a United Nations body.<\/p>\n

The INCB <\/a>lists the UK as the world\u2019s top producer of legal cannabis, at a national total of 95 tons in 2016 \u2014 more than double on the figure for the previous year. This accounted for some 45 percent of the global total, according to a write-up on the report in London\u2019s\u00a0Evening Standard. <\/a>The UK was also found to have exported 2.1 tons, making for an impressive 67.7 percent of the world total.<\/p>\n

Second to the UK in global cannabis production was Canada, at 80.7 tons, followed by Portugal (21 tons), Israel (9.2 tons), the Netherlands and Chile (each clocking in at 1.4 tons). The Netherlands comes in a distant second to the UK as an exporter of cannabis \u2014 accounting for 16.4 percent of the world total.<\/p>\n

The answer to this enigma apparently lies in the British firm\u00a0GW Pharmaceuticals,<\/a>\u00a0which markets\u00a0Epidiolex, an epilepsy treatment, and Sativex, for muscle spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis. Both are derived from cannabinoids.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of [UK] production is for Sativex, but a considerable amount has been developed for Epidiolex,\u201d Stephen Murphy, managing director of UK-based cannabis industry consultancy\u00a0Prohibition Partners<\/a>, told the\u00a0Financial Post<\/a>. \u201cProduct development and research would also account for a large percent [of production].\u201d<\/p>\n

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GW\u2019s operations also seem to account for most of the UK\u2019s exports, with the product going to corporate and university laboratories around the world, rather than the retail medical market.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The\u00a0GW Pharmaceuticals website<\/a>\u00a0says: \u201cSince 1998, GW has been licensed by the UK Home Office to cultivate cannabis plants for medical use\u2026 GW\u2019s cannabis plants are grown in highly secure glasshouses. All key aspects of the growing climate are controlled and the plants are grown without the use of pesticides. Careful control of the growing environment ensures that GW\u2019s plant material is grown to very strict pharmaceutical standards and that growth is phased to ensure continuity of supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, just last month,\u00a0The Telegraph\u00a0<\/a>predicted: \u201cThe UK could become the world\u2019s biggest grower and processor of cannabis plants destined for use in prescription medications after one of the country\u2019s most promising biotechs announced plans to ramp up its production of the plant.\u201d By the INCB findings, GW has already propelled Britain into the number one global position.<\/p>\n

According to The Telegraph account of the report<\/a>, most of the GW cannabis is actually being grown under contract by\u00a0British Sugar<\/a>\u00a0at its 18-hectare greenhouse in Norfolk \u2014 the largest such facility in the UK, equivalent in size to 23 soccer fields. The facility was built to grow tomatoes. Additionally, GW over the next three years intends to more than triple capacity at one of its own facilities in England\u2019s South East.<\/p>\n

All this is rather ironic given the UK\u2019s continuing intolerant position on use of cannabis products not being marketed by corporate pharma giants \u2014 even for medical purposes. Under the system created by the UK\u2019s 1971\u00a0Misuse of Drugs Act<\/a>, cannabis is in the restrictive Class B \u2014 for drugs deemed too potentially dangerous for medical use. In 2004, cannabis was placed in the less restrictive Class C, but this was\u00a0reversed\u00a0<\/a>by the Home Office in 2008. In 2016, Parliament\u00a0rejected a petition<\/a>\u00a0to have cannabis removed from the classification system altogether. The\u00a0GW website<\/a>\u00a0explains that the company is licensed by the Home Office to produce for \u201cresearch and development\u201d purposes.<\/p>\n

Last month,\u00a0The Guardian<\/a>\u00a0reported on the British government\u2019s refusal to issue a license for a six-year-old boy with a severe form of epilepsy to be treated with cannabis oil. Alfie Dingley, from Kenilworth, Warwickshire, suffers as many as 30 seizures each day. His mother said the attacks decreased dramatically in both number and severity while he was in the Netherlands to be treated with a cannabis-based medication. Members of the multi-party drug policy reform bloc in Parliament urged the Home Office to allow Dingley to access his medicine. But the Home Office was intransigent. An official statement said cannabis oil \u201ccannot be practically prescribed, administered or supplied to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve Rolles, an analyst with the reform advocacy group\u00a0Transform<\/a>, told\u00a0The Independent<\/a>: \u201cIt is scandalous and untenable for the UK government to maintain that cannabis has no medical uses, at the same time as licensing the world\u2019s biggest government-approved medical cannabis production and export market.\u201d<\/p>\n

TELL US,<\/b> are you surprised that the UK produces the most cannabis in the world?<\/p>\n

The post UN Report: UK Is Top Legal Cannabis Producer<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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A United Nations study brings back the surprise finding that the world\u2019s biggest producer of legal cannabis is Great Britain. The answer to this seeming anomaly lies in one UK-based multinational corporation with industrial-scale grow operations for production of pharmaceuticals. Many observers of the industry were surprised by the findingsContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,80,170,1572,3640],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24341,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24340\/revisions\/24341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}