A new report has called for Government to turbocharge UK cannabinoid innovation.
The report sets out 20 key recommendations which, upon implementation, would set the UK on a path to become the global leader in cannabinoid innovation.
From Containment to Nurturing: How the UK can become a world leader in cannabinoid innovation was commissioned by The Centre for Medicinal Cannabis and the Association for the Cannabinoid Industry. It is authored by renowned regulatory thinker, Professor Christopher Hodges, Emeritus Professor of Justice Systems at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at
the University of Oxford, and is to be launched with a speech by George Freeman MP, Minister for Science, Research & Innovation – the first ever ministerial address to the legal cannabis sector. It draws on wide ranging inputs from leading
industry players, academics, patients, consumers and investors.
Hodges argues that the regulatory framework he sets out would achieve three important objectives:
- Global competitive advantage for the UK post-Brexit, helping the country to leverage its historic and economic strengths in a rapidly growing and unprecedented global industry.
- Regulatory best practice giving early mover advantage, helping to pioneer new approaches to regulating a novel
industry that other jurisdictions on a similar path can choose to emulate. - Scientific advances and innovations, with pioneering new treatments, manufacturing methods, and end user product innovations, helping the UK to reinforce its reputation as the home of world-leading inventions and discoveries that improve our environment, our health, and our quality of life.
“The analysis in this report and the principles we have outlined lead us to recommend a series of policy changes
to help bring about the positive and shared goals that we articulate. The recommendations are directed both
at regulators and industry, with the understanding that both parties have an obligation to cooperate to steward
this new industry and support it to develop in an innovative but also safe and responsible way,” commented Professor Hodges.
