The MULL team spent a fabulous two days at the Cannabis Europa conference, held in London on June 28th and 29th 2022.
We’ve attended previous Europa conferences and, while they’re primarily focused around Medical Cannabis, it’s a great way for us to get a feel for the wider cannabis industry.
At Cannabis Europa our main interest is in meeting hardware suppliers (vapes and such like), learning more about the deregulation of cannabis around the world and (most of all) networking and making more contacts throughout the industry.
HARDWARE
From the hardware world we met up with several of our great friends, who source and design amazing products. We saw some fantastic new vapes, including pipes, mini-bubblers and re-usable cartridges. Please join our newsletter to keep updated as we stock new kits.
It was great to meet the European team from PAX. Personally, I use a PAX 3 and am a big fan, so I was interested to hear about their new products. They showed us the full PAX range, in addition to their new range of grinders and smell-proof bags. The grinders were very nice - black, magnetic, well-made and interestingly, square shaped 🙂
DEREGULATION
From a de-regulation perspective, the picture is mixed. After speaking to our contacts, including politicians, and industry lobbyists, we know there are some very positive discussions happening in Germany, Portugal and Switzerland. Those countries are announcing either ‘recreational’ trials or bringing forward new legislation to de-regulate cannabis. On the other hand, my colleague listened to a presentation about Italy and sadly came to the conclusion it could takes years for them to change their laws.
In the UK, our view is the current UK government will not change the Misuse of Drugs laws or de-regulate. Therefore the question is, what will the next government do, likely after 2024? Unfortunately, it appears the upper echelons of the Labour Party (namely, Starmer & Thornberry) appear to be missing an open goal by not announcing plans to reform UK drug policy. To us, it seems like a guaranteed vote winner. For instance, in the recent Australian elections the Legislate Cannabis Party received over 500,000 votes out of a population of 26 million!
It was great to meet growers and farmers from places as diverse as South Africa, Columbia, Jamaica, Czech and Uruguay. Many of these countries, while prohibiting recreational cannabis use, are enabling farmers to grow medical cannabis crops and export them.
Finally, we met a British entrepreneur who is about to open the UK’s biggest medical cannabis crop in a hidden location. We’re currently sworn to secrecy but hopefully we’ll bring you more news & photos soon.