Macedonia, Jersey, Greece... Europe's future cannabis nuggets?

Europe is not a uniform bloc where all cannabis laws are aligned. While the Netherlands has long supplied Europe with medical cannabis, Germany has pulled ahead of other countries, first by importing Canadian cannabis and then by launching its own domestic production. Establishing this domestic production is taking time but will most certainly become a model for Europe once finalized—at least in terms of the quality of its infrastructure and finished products.

Portugal and Denmark are now also attractive destinations for Canadian investment. Portugal will begin offering GMP products to the European market by the end of 2020, and Denmark, despite some delays, is also entering this market, with Canopy Growth, Aphria, and Aurora lying in wait.

However, the countries most likely to attract investment may not be those. Take Macedonia, for example.

The The country legalized medical cannabis in 2016. Only four conditions qualify for cannabis treatment: cancer, epilepsy, HIV/AIDS, and multiple sclerosis. Treatments are prescribed by a doctor, while products containing less than 0.2% of THC are widely available in pharmacies.

The country, which has fewer than 2 million inhabitants, has nevertheless already laid off 24 workers, with 20 more set to follow, with the full support of the government, which sees this as an economic opportunity. Health Minister Venko Filipche, said : «If we want to boost the economy in North Macedonia, cannabis is the way to do it.».

And foreign investment is more than welcome. The average income of residents is around €1,000 per month, whereas the cost of setting up a GMP-compliant factory generally ranges from 500K to 1 million euros, not to mention the cost of obtaining the production license.

However, there is still one remaining obstacle: for now, producers can only export oils, and not flowers. Since the country severely lacks processing capacity, the flowers are stored, with the risk that they will end up on the Albanian black market—a close neighbor and Europe’s main source of cannabis.

Greece has taken the same stance on medical cannabis. The Greek Minister of Development said that the government «wanted economic growth» for the cannabis sector. Twenty-nine producers have already been granted their licenses and are currently in the process of obtaining their building permits—if they haven’t already begun work on their GMP facilities. The first plants will likely be planted in the second half of 2020. More than 60 license applications are still under review.

When it comes to CBD, Greece is already much more lenient than its neighbors. It allows In fact, the cultivation of non-catalog hemp varieties—intended for the production of flowers with high CBD content—can take place outdoors or indoors. The only requirements are to apply for a government license and to keep records of all sales for three years in case of inspections. Negotiations are also currently underway to raise the THC threshold levels in hemp to at least 0.3%, with a tolerance level of 0.8% for field-grown plants.

As for Jersey, in addition to already being an attractive destination for capital, the island could gain an edge over its European competitors thanks to its unique legislation on CBD. The law there allows a THC-to-CBD ratio of 3%, meaning that a product containing 50% of CBD can legally contain up to 1.5% of THC.

This allows the island’s hemp farmers to legally extract and sell full-spectrum oil, from which they can remove the THC to market broad-spectrum oil in the United Kingdom and beyond.

The island is also expected to issue its first licenses for medical cannabis in the first half of this year, with strong interest from North American investors.