Canada has finally legalisted marijuana - and Ireland should be next

October 17 was a red-letter day for progressive drug policy as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered on his 2014 manifesto promise to legalise recreational marijuana. Medicinal marijuana has been legal there since 2001.

Depending on the province, buyers must be 18 or 19 with strong penalties for those selling to minors. There’s a four plants per household limit if you’re growing your own, and a 30g cap on the amount you can carry on your person. There’s also new drug-impaired driving legislation, which enables police to carry out roadside saliva tests and the courts to impose jail time if they feel the offence warrants it.

People who’ve subsequently had a clean, five-year streak without crime will now be able to have low-level marijuana offences expunged from their record.

Closely monitoring events in Canada have been Stephen Murphy, the Waterford man who quit the advertising industry to last year set up Prohibition Partners, a market intelligence and cannabis consultancy company with Rob Reid, a Dubliner who previously co-owned the In The Company of Huskies advertising agency. The duo then went on to launch the investment group, European Cannabis Holdings.

“Canada going fully legal is monumental and game-changing,” Stephen tells Hot Press as he prepares to fly from London to New York. “Anyone who’s been wondering, ‘Is this a professional, sophisticated and rapidly developing industry?’ now has their answer.”

It’s estimated that 5.4 millions Canadians – about 15% of the population – will purchase cannabis from licensed dispensaries in 2018. To cater for demand, between 400,000 and 500,000 kilograms of combustible herb will have to be grown each year. There are now 90 publicly listed marijuana companies in Canada with a market value in excess of $31 billion. European Cannabis Holdings last week completed its £3 million round of private seed funding – “It was a small international pool of experienced investors”, Murphy says - with an Initial Public Offering (IPO) scheduled for early 2019.

“One of the challenges for the industry is a lack of real credible information that can help drive it forward,” Stephen continues. “We’d seen things happening in Canada, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands and wanted to become a go-to place for market intelligence, advisory services and bespoke consultancy within the European cannabis industry. We work with a lot of cultivators but, as an investment company, we don’t touch the plant itself. We concentrate instead on aspects like medical education, which is a real challenge in every new legalised market. When we first started there were eight markets that were legal for medical cannabis. In January of this year there were around a dozen. By the end of the year there will probably be seventeen markets.”

The various European Cannabis Holdings initiatives include the Academy of Medical Cannabis, an online training platform created in partnership with Professor Mike Barnes, founder of the World Federation of Neurological Rehabilitation.

“Europe’s biggest market at the moment is Germany where there’s a month on month growth in patients using medical cannabis of 40%,” Murphy resumes. “And that’s with only 2%-3% of doctors being comfortable with prescribing it. A lack of medical education is a real challenge. You can’t just flick a switch and say, ‘Go away and prescribe’. Doctors need a proper, formal education and guidance as to what medical cannabis is. You’re having to remove all the myths they’ve been told and any other lingering stigma.”

Do Prohibition Partners wait for health ministers like Simon Harris to eventually come around to their way of thinking or are they lobbyists for legislative change?

“We don’t lobby directly but have been asked for our input by a number of government panels,” he replies. “Because we work in so many international markets, we have a lot of insights into regulatory guidelines and other things that we can share. We would be eager to participate in conversations with Simon Harris and his team. It unfortunately takes a figure like Vera Twomey, who in my mind is a hero, to make headway and force the government to act. We truly believe that there are patients here suffering because of this medicine not being available and, actually, the solutions are pretty straightforward. We’re eager for the government to make further progress and to give assurances to the Irish public, and especially patients, as to when legal medical cannabis will be available on prescription. At the minute they’re very much being left in the dark.”

That £3 million raised by European Cannabis Holdings is small change compared to the $4 billion that Constellation Brands, whose drinks portfolio includes Corona, has sunk into Canadian marijuana cultivators, Canopy Growth. The Canadian arm of Molson Coors are also investing heavily in the development of cannabis-infused drinks while Diageo and Coca-Cola both say that they’re monitoring developments.

“The involvement of companies like Molson Coors and Constellation Brands is eye-catching, but the really big business is being done by pharma companies,” Stephen Murphy stresses. “Ireland has one of the best pharma industries in the world, and for it not to be taking the initiative and driving this is such a lost opportunity. If you look at the pharma industries in the Czech Republic and Israel, they’re really leading the way in terms of cannabis innovation.”

The cannabis industry has had to contend with such blatant hypocrisy as UK Drugs Minister, Victoria Atkins, decrying medicinal marijuana while the company her husband is MD of, British Sugar, cultivates it overseas. “As I said earlier, it’s all down to education and removing the stigma left over from the so-called War On Drugs,” Murphy reflects. “That we now have Canada to point to as an example of a fully legal market is hugely beneficial.”

With a prestigious office address in Berkley Square and a team that also includes a former Morgan Stanley investment banker, Ben Langley, European Cannabis Holdings couldn’t be further removed from the underground stoner culture of yore.

“One of the things we wanted from day one was to present a professional face to the industry so that we could challenge the misconceptions about medical cannabis that still exist,” Murphy notes.

While Canada with its population of just over 37 million is a significant market, the big prize for the likes of Molson Coors, Constellation Brands and (possibly) Diageo and Coca-Cola is the almost ten times as big US where Jeff Sessions wants the sale of all marijuana to remain a federal offence - and Donald Trump has hinted that he’s prepared to once again overrule his beleaguered Attorney General.

Angered by the clear advantage that has been handed to their Canadian rivals, the multistate pot firm, Terra Tech, took out a full-page advert last week in the Wall Street Journal.

“The rapidly growing American cannabis industry represents an extraordinary economic opportunity for our country, yet Canada is threatening to deprive American farmers, workers and businesses from the prosperity that rightly belongs within our borders,” they complained. “The cannabis industry is legal in 31 states, yet most domestic companies do not have access to traditional banking or institutionalised financing. As a result, many US companies are being forced to move to the Canadian public markets to access capital and building their businesses.”

Not a good look for a president who brags about creating American jobs. As fake as he considers them to be, Trump will also have taken on board last month’s New York Daily News editorial which proclaimed: “Marijuana has more in common with alcohol and tobacco than it does with harder drugs. That, along with years of unfair enforcement, leads us to declare: It’s time to legalise pot in N.Y.”

The final word goes to Stephen Murphy who concludes: “It’s not a wonder drug, but there are fifty-plus significant conditions from cancer to epilepsy, which can be treated with medical cannabis. Hundreds of millions have been spent on serious research that shows it impacts positively on the lives of patients suffering from these conditions. This might sound like I’m over-stating it, but I really believe that cannabis will fundamentally change every industry.”