UK CBD market to reach 1.2bn this year

Due to increased demand during curfew and the relaxation of regulations, the UK CBD market is set to reach record sales of £ 690 million ($ 1.2 billion) this year. That came from a new report released this week by two cannabis industry groups that concluded that "Britain now has the most advanced regulatory framework in the world for CBD." The paper, Green Shoots: Sowing The Seeds Of The New UK Cannabis Industry, was written by the Association for the Cannabinoid Industry and the Center for Medicinal Cannabis. Industry groups say the government's new support has sparked a "silent cannabis revolution" in the UK as CBD stores continue to pop up in the island nation's cities. The newspaper cites how the UK became the first country in the European Union in 2018 to create a legal framework for cannabis-based medicinal products, opening up prescriptions and medical research opportunities with patients. Cannabidiol, or CBD, is the non-psychoactive compound extracted from both cannabis and hemp plants. Over the past year, the extract has been used in myriad products marketed to treat conditions such as anxiety, insomnia, and acne. However, CBD research is still in the process of proving these health claims. This year the U.K. Foods Standards Agency opened up the domestic CBD industry by regulating the products as dietary supplements. Independently of this, the Ministry of the Interior - the federal agency responsible for immigration, security and law and order - is working on establishing rules for safe and tolerable THC levels in health products. These policy advances have led industry groups to raise their forecast for the size of the UK CBD market in 2021 by a third from an earlier estimate of £ 526 million ($ 888 million). "The size of this cannabinoid sector is impossible to ignore right now," CMC and ACI co-founder and study co-author Paul Birch said in a statement. "Almost unnoticed and certainly more by accident than planned, the UK has become the second largest cannabinoid consumer market in the world." However, the report claims that more government intervention and investment is needed to develop domestic CBD and hemp production opportunities. With the UK restricting hemp cultivation and processing of cannabidiol, the authors note that the major profits of the industry go overseas. Under current legislation, hemp farmers are forced to destroy up to 80 percent of their crops, including the plant's precious, CBD-rich flowers. The industry groups argue that the market is an important growth sector for the UK to stimulate post-turnaround economic growth. Your paper calls on the government to adopt a "proactive strategy" to support job creation and the growth of the cannabinoid sector. The report includes 20 recommendations that the industry groups recently presented to the new government task force on innovation, growth and regulatory reform set up by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in February. These recommendations include: a new center of excellence to fund and promote the best new clinical knowledge to fuel the emerging medical cannabis market in the UK; and an urgent regulatory reform to steer and leverage emerging scientific knowledge across the spectrum: from agricultural science and plant genetics to novel synthetics, new therapies and clinical trials.