{"id":35999,"date":"2019-06-11T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T17:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2019\/06\/11\/the-church-of-england-will-invest-in-cannabis-industry\/"},"modified":"2019-06-12T12:47:38","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T20:47:38","slug":"the-church-of-england-will-invest-in-cannabis-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2019\/06\/11\/the-church-of-england-will-invest-in-cannabis-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"The Church of England Will Invest in Cannabis Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p>This week, the Church of England announced that it is moving to make investments in the cannabis industry.<\/p>\n<p>The Church of England\u2019s commissioners, who manage its endowment fund containing over $10 billion in assets, recently made the announcement. They noted that they would be holding the plant to the same standard that they hold pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/International\/holy-smoke-church-england-backs-medicinal-cannabis-investments\/story?id=63604721\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ABC News reported<\/a>\u00a0that the church\u2019s endowment is a closed fund, which means it does not take in new contributions. Any money the fund ends up bringing in is used to pay for bishops and ministry costs, supporting local dioceses and paying clergy pensions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere has been no change to our overall position on medicines,\u201d a spokesperson for the Church Commissioners told ABC News. \u201cWe will hold medicinal cannabis to the same standards as we hold other pharmaceuticals, and invest only if properly licensed and regulated for medicinal use.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since it\u2019s a church, there are obviously some stipulations on how the Church of England can invest the money. In the Church of England\u2019s case, it\u2019s called the Ethical Investment Policy. The policy sets guidelines on how the church invests in companies that generate profits from all kinds of fun stuff like gambling, alcohol and tobacco. Any investment made at this point in cannabis would be strictly medical.<\/p>\n<p>But let us not write off Henry the VII\u2019s heavenly spliffs just yet. The Church is obviously looking to get into one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy, following\u00a0<a href=\"\/medical-cannabis-products-will-finally-be-legal-in-the-uk-but-which-ones\/\">the limited legalization of medical cannabis in the UK last fall<\/a>. If you were to go back to the third day of creation week when God created plants and do the math about how much the cannabis sector has grown since then, the amount of lost revenue for the church would be simply staggering. All jokes aside, this new development from the Church of England shows how much times are changing.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>This new development from the Church of England shows how much times are changing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Hari Guliani of the UK-based cannabis company Grow Biotech gave his take on the news.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a lot of research being undertaken globally on medical cannabis that will help everyone\u2019s understanding, but it does seem that the distinction between medical and recreational cannabis remains unclear for some people,\u201d he told ABC News. \u201cWith groups like the Church of England considering investments in medical cannabis, we can expect perceptions to continue to change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On its website, the Church of England goes into a bit more depth on how a big part of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchofengland.org\/about\/leadership-and-governance\/church-commissioners-england\/how-we-invest\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fund revolves around its ethical standards<\/a>. \u201cWe are committed to responsible investment. We think that taking account of environmental, social and governance issues in our investment decisions is an intrinsic part of being a good long-term investor,\u201d so clearly medical cannabis is now checking all those boxes.<\/p>\n<p>The Church Commissioners first started controlling the fund just after the Second World War, when England was deep in reconstruction efforts after spending the first half of the decade dealing with Luftwaffe bombers. In 2017, under the guidance of the commissioners, the fund was able to produce\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchofengland.org\/about\/leadership-and-governance\/church-commissioners\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">$287 million in funds<\/a>\u00a0to donate to the church. According to the church\u2019s website, that sum accounted for roughly 15% of the Church\u2019s overall income, and it makes the commissioners one of the largest charitable givers inside the UK.<\/p>\n<p>The church won\u2019t have to look far too invest. England is home to the creators of\u00a0<a href=\"\/the-dea-reschedules-cannabis-derived-epidiolex-not-cbd\/\">Epidiolex<\/a>, GW Pharmaceuticals. The Cambridge-based company\u2019s stock was up 5% following the announcement about the Church\u2019s decision, and it\u2019s hard to not see it as a likely target for the fund. Currently, GW is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/2019\/01\/how-britain-became-the-worlds-largest-expert-in-medical-marijuana\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">producing 90 tons of cannabis annually<\/a>\u00a0in 18 hectares of greenhouses.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TELL US,<\/strong>\u00a0do you have any cannabis investments?<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/cannabisnow.com\/the-church-of-england-will-invest-in-cannabis-industry\/\">The Church of England Will Invest in Cannabis Industry<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/cannabisnow.com\">Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\nRead More: <a href=\"https:\/\/cannabisnow.com\/the-church-of-england-will-invest-in-cannabis-industry\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Church of England Will Invest in Cannabis Industry<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, the Church of England announced that it is moving to make investments in the cannabis industry. The Church of England\u2019s commissioners, who manage its endowment fund containing over $10 billion in assets, recently made the announcement. They noted that they would be holding the plant to the same<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2019\/06\/11\/the-church-of-england-will-invest-in-cannabis-industry\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,505,10245,170,3156,5795,3157,1572],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35999"}],"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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36000,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35999\/revisions\/36000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}