Dr. Gary Yates is the CSO at Seedsman and PharmaSeeds, a specialist supplier of propagation materials and expertise to the growing global medical cannabis industry.
In this article, Gary breaks down where the UK stands with the legalisation and legislation of cannabis in 2023. Why hasn't there been significant progress in line with the rest of Europe?
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For the first time in over two decades, a UK mainland company has been granted a commercial cultivation license. This comes four years after medical cannabis was first approved in the UK and paints an embarrassingly slow picture of progress for a country that once claimed the most exported cannabis in the world! Why is this potentially thriving industry not thriving? Are we at the point where the pendulum is finally starting to swing in favour of cannabis? Or is it just more of the same?
Unrealistic Regulatory Standards Slowing the UK Cannabis Industry Down?
Although it’s difficult to see at times, there is a constant pushing and probing at UK cannabis/drug laws, resulting in the feeling that things will inevitably change for the cannabis industry. However, tangible progress is taking its time to materialise, and even after the 2018 reform on medical cannabis, very little has changed for the better. One possible reason for the UK’s cautious and slow approach to developing a national cannabis industry is how cultivation and product standards are set.
To regulate the industry, it is entirely reasonable for certain standards to be brought into place to effectively determine the quality of the product and its viability to market - but who gets to determine these standards?
Are the people setting the standards experienced cultivators, breeders or extractors? Do they have cannabis-specific knowledge from which to best direct the guidelines? The answer is “probably not”.
What is Delaying the Development of a Thriving British Cannabis Industry?
For no obvious reason, the UK cannabis industry has stagnated. With all regulatory authorities seemingly onboard with the concept of cannabis use for medical reasons, is it the categorisation of ‘medical use’ itself that is ultimately holding it back? There is a dark cloud of unknowns as to why we seem unable to push the industry forward with the gusto the likes of Thailand and other newly emerging cannabis-friendly countries have. If there is no influence from ‘big industry’, which I doubt, then maybe the problem stems from trying to classify cannabis and its many uses as ‘medicine.’ There is a clear case being made in other regions for wellness, which is a more forgiving categorisation than medicinal.
Perhaps those in the most need of cannabis medicines are the ones who require it to be under scrupulous regulations and restrictions, i.e., children with rare disorders only cannabis-based medicines seem able to fix. I fully advocate for greater access for these patients and agree with the need for that type of medicine to be well- tested and quality controlled.
As much as the UK cannabis industry needs a revolutionary scale reform to become operational, the sad truth is that, whilst this plant is controlled by civil servants (Home Office, DEFRA) and medical/pharmaceutical boards (MHRA, ABPI), the understanding required to draft meaningful standards with the genotypic tendencies of the plant in mind will be sorely lacking. In fact, it could be argued that this is one of the reasons there has been little progress in the UK in terms of facilitating even medical use. The constant referral to NICE and other international points of reference, such as pharmacopeia manuals, is important for medicine but less for wellness and even less for allowing access to those in an extreme minority aliment-wise. Safety concerns and over-egged toxicity claims, even for CBD, have been used time and time again to hold back progress, but is it justified? Why can’t we use our experts to create rules based on science and experience?
Cannabis: A Multifaceted Plant
The plant that is a food source, provides building material, is useful in the cosmeceutical industry, has undeniable pharmaceutical properties, and all the medicinal, well-being, mental health and other benefits which force it to traverse multiple regulatory bodies ultimately remains somewhat caged due to the lack of fundamental understanding in regulatory bodies and the wider research community (peer-reviewed literature). Too much emphasis is placed on the effect of isolated compounds, particularly the decarboxylated cannabinoids (e.g. THC and CBD), and even the research at the clinical level for these two ‘superstars’ is far from comprehensive. As a result, the knowledge that the regulatory bodies base such guidelines on is patchy at best, leaving us with an abhorrent lack of useful regulations and guidelines.
Expectations vs Reality
One example of proposed and actual standards comes from EU Pharmacopeia and used in other regions such as Israel and includes standards such as “(plus or minus) 10% of the recorded THC levels must be maintained in subsequent cycles of the same genotype or the crop cannot be approved.”
If this statement applied to an indoor facility that was completely environmentally controlled and all production plants were asexually produced (cloned) from mother plants, it would be achievable once all teething issues are addressed. The example here is to show that as many variables as possible are controlled, thus reducing the potential variation in the outputs. However, should, for example, the cultivation be part-greenhouse and dependant on solar radiation for light. Particularly low or high light seasons may affect the outputs of the plant way beyond 10% of what was initially tested. In other words, the plants’ natural variation to the response to light intensity will cause outcomes far beyond 10% of what was tested at a particular time.
Another example would be the same rule being applied to a single plant, “……cannabinoids must not vary by more than 10% from one floret (bud) to the next.” Even in our indoor example, without the correct type of plant training, this variation is too small a target for the plant to deal with if left to grow to its natural architecture.
This stipulation fails to consider that shading, apical dominance, and proximity to light source are important variables determining cannabinoid levels.
These examples are just some of the reasons it is important to have people who know the plant and its genetic tendencies contributing to the rules and regulations that govern the standards.
Potential solutions for Cannabis Policy
It is easy to find fault but harder to find solutions, so, as a balance to the negative angle on the above examples, here are some ideas that policymakers could consider.
Bear in mind that these ideas are just that – ideas. They have flaws, and they only represent a small number of possibilities. If readers are inclined, please find others who have written and spoken about better ideas or different ideas to get a more balanced and rounded view of the possibilities.
1. Set standards on the cultivation of the plant rather than on its pre-determined outputs.
For example, appropriate plant architecture manipulation must be applied to reduce the canopy into one shallow layer to maintain maximum consistency. In conjunction with: canopy light levels during flowering must not fall under 600 umol/m2/s.
Then, once the post-harvest processes are complete and testing is done, the test results are written on the label, and this is exactly what is in the package regarding cannabinoid levels. Currently, it is done the opposite way - the cultivar is tested during a validation stage, which determines what all downstream products say on the tin – a bit of an oversimplification. Things are improving, but just to highlight that the current system needs revision. Any variation in the product is left unaccounted for, and there are some horrendous examples of mislabelled prescription cannabis, well explained in this article by Kyle Esplin, Chair of the Scottish Hemp Association ((13) Inaccurately labelled medical cannabis products in the UK | LinkedIn).
It would be much easier to manage consistency if the regulations helped to guide the style of cultivation required for the stringent industry gatekeepers who usually insist upon precise numbers on active ingredients. The need for precise quantities of cannabinoids is understandable, as most pharmaceuticals are dose-dependent, and precision is needed. However, the medical benefits associated with cannabis are not well understood. Leading scientists such as Ethan Russo, who have long made the claim about the entourage effect, are probably much closer to understanding the efficacy than one could ascertain from numerous clinical trials using isolated cannabinoids. It would therefore be much easier to find a type of cannabis suited to each individual patient rather than showing how one cannabinoid behaves in a handful of people which will henceforth determine its effects.
2. Consider trialling a successful model adopted by other countries in the E.U. – cannabis social clubs – with a view to implementation if trials prove beneficial. Cannabis social clubs have been successfully implemented in Malta, where patients can obtain medical cannabis without prescription for ailments that may not necessarily fall under the umbrella of diagnosed medical conditions. These patrons are considered wellness consumers, and may wish to trial cannabis as a therapeutic aid as part of a natural or holistic approach to health and wellness.
Cannabis social clubs offer solutions to multiple problems, allowing a safe and controlled environment for individuals to consume cannabis while at the same removing concerns doctors may have about prescribing cannabis as medicine. However, to further allay patient and doctor concerns, cannabis social clubs would still allow doctors to be present to monitor, and ensure harm reduction.
3. Allow a medical micro-grow license system such as has operated in Canada since around 2000 - or take it a step further and allow home growing entirely. Those who need cannabis for medicine could grow for themselves or their family/friends, where they could find the genotype best suited to them and grow it themselves knowing it has been produced, for example, organically (if that’s important to their health condition).
The ways in which the self-governing of cultivation would play out would also feedback upon itself. The many new growers and cultivators would expand our understanding and abilities as growers, while helping optimise the genetics for each individual. This is impractical for the most severely ill patients who may be too unwell to manage growing cannabis.
Conclusion
Whatever the best way forward for creating standards is, it is clear that the plant’s behaviour, responses to its environment, and variable output must be factored into the equation, or there will never be a valuable way to govern the plant as a medicine. The result of getting this wrong could be profit or loss for cultivation companies, and if the standards are not fit for purpose, it would most likely hold the industry back rather than enable it to move forward. Classifying cannabis and its use under wellness seems to be the key that unlocks the door to access. This could be how the UK finally manages to enable a thriving cannabis industry.
