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CANNABIS iS GLOBAL
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BY CINDY ORSER, PHD. DIGIPATH LABS
annabis is widely cultivated and trafficked around the world, from North America and Europe to Israel and Australia both legally and illicitly. Globally, about 2.25% of the population consumes cannabis. When you think of the legal cannabis industry as an American, you think primarily of Colorado and California, but the progression of cannabis legalization is not limited to the United States. Both medical and recreational cannabis make up a multi-billion dollar global industry. Lawful cannabis programs have already been implemented in Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, Germany, Italy, Israel, and the Czech Republic regardless of global drug policy. Most of these countries regulate cannabis as a medicine. So, while the U.S. may appear to be progressive when it comes to cannabis as we approach a two-thirds majority on the topic, we are lagging behind other key countries such as Canada and Israel, which already have operational national cannabis medical programs and are both set to enact recreational programs soon. Israel in particular is at least 10 years ahead of the U.S. in instituting standardization in the production and extraction of cannabis for clinical trials leading to patented drug products eager to gain FDA approval and entry into the very lucrative prescription drug market in the U.S. companies stateside will need to play catch up or get a little adventurous in partnering outside of the country.
This verdant global cannabis market is blossoming. U.S. cannabis companies who partner with truly cannabis-progressive countries and players in those arenas can gain entry into this very viable global cannabis import-export industry. Let’s take Open-Vape, founded in Denver in 2012, as an example of a company that has recently acquired an export-import license to grow cannabis in Jamaica, outdoors. Open-Vape manufactures and distributes vape pen oil-filled cartridges to 1,200+ retail locations across a distribution network of licensed affiliates in Colorado, California, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Mexico, Jamaica, Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, Ireland, Scotland, and South Africa from cannabis grown outdoors in Jamaica for pennies a gram but they couldn’t ship that same product across state lines from Colorado to say Nevada! In the meantime, we all stand around waiting for the FDA and the DEA to make a move toward de-scheduling. Setting aside the knowledge that the U.S. is behind and slipping in medical cannabis innovation, another consequence of a mushrooming global cannabis industry is that the wholesale price will plummet and the individual cultivator’s status will decline as the focus will be on the raw material; which 90% of will be extracted. How can you compete with your $1.20 per gram indoor growing costs in the U.S. with 20 cents per gram grown outdoors abroad with cheap labor? Obviously, cannabis like most other commodity crops should be grown outdoors in the glorious free sunshine sucking up CO2 instead of adding 4,600 pounds of CO2 for every pound of cannabis produced indoors. That’s right, according to Mother Jone’s, the electricity used by the combined indoor cannabis grows is enough to power 1.7 million homes or the equivalent of 7 large power plants. And that other 10% of the cannabis growers will become the artists to the true cannabis connoisseurs. The particular cultivar, terpene mix and growing matrix will matter, the defined genotype, registered cultivar matched to the perfect living soil matrix on a south facing slope somewhere exotic in the world. And the cost of that pot, yeah you can’t afford it!
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