Association for the Cannabinoid Industry (ACI) and Center for Medicinal Cannabis (CMC) announced the launch of a report today, entitled Green Shoots – Sowing the Seeds of the New UK Cannabis Industry, with a new assessment of the UK consumer cannabidiol (CBD) market, which is estimated to generate 690 million pounds in sales for the year 2021.
 
This figure surpassed previous predictions made in a market sizing study undertaken by CMC in 2019, which then estimated that the market would be worth 526 million pounds in 2021. “The size of this cannabinoid sector is now impossible to ignore,” Paul Birch, co-founder of the CMC and ACI, said. “Almost without notice and certainly by accident rather than design, the UK has improbably become the world’s second largest consumer cannabinoids market.”
 
The UK “now has the most evolved regulatory framework in the world for CBD,” the report concludes, citing recent interventions made by the Foods Standards Agency to regulate products as dietary supplements, and by the Home Office to consider what are safe and tolerable levels of THC contained in the products. The report calls for more government intervention and investment to ensure that the UK optimizes what it describes as ‘Britain’s quiet cannabis revolution.’
 
The report claims that, due to domestic restrictions on hemp cultivation and processing in the UK, the bulk of profits for this industry are going overseas – UK farmers are required by law to destroy parts of the hemp crop which CBD is extracted from. The report argues that the market represents a key growth sector for the UK and that the government should adopt a proactive strategy to seize opportunities in the cannabinoids sector.
 
The report makes 20 recommendations drawing on a submission recently made to a new governmental task force on Innovation, Growth, and Regulatory Reform, which was established by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in February to stimulate post-COVID economic growth.
 
The report authors call for a dedicated agency to license and oversee the CBD industry, a new center to fund, synthesize, and promulgate the best new clinical evidence to boost the UK’s nascent medicinal cannabis market, and urgent reform of licensing policy to steer and harness the emerging scientific evidence across the spectrum of the industry – including agri-science, plant genetics, novel synthetics, new therapies, and clinical trials.
 
“With new government support the accidental consumer cannabis revolution that has allowed CCBD to become available on every high street in the UK could become permanent, nurturing hundreds of new businesses, thousands of jobs, and billions of pounds in exports,” Steve Moore, co-founder and strategic counsel to the CMC and ACI, said. “It’s hard to imagine the many more industries that could benefit almost immediately from the proposals set out in our report.”