Business
Growing Weed in the UK – Why is It So Hard to Get a Cultivation License in England?
The United Kingdom’s government administration is in a state of flux as regards the licensing of regulated drugs. This state of instability is a result of the 1971 and 2001 Misuse of Drugs Act and other subordinate legislation.
As things stand, the medical and therapeutic gospel of specific regulated drugs, cannabis specifically, has brought about media attention. Now, the cannabis industry seems to be developing both in the UK and globally with CBD products advertised as wellness products. But when it comes to how such products are perceived by the UK government, the sales of such products would be illegal.
Another round of bad news on this issue would be that the cultivation of cannabis in the UK is also considered illegal except if you’re licensed to do so. Under the 1979 Misuse of Drugs Act, the cultivation of any cannabis strain regardless of the THC percentage it contains is illegal in the UK.
In simple terms, this means that all cannabis strains fall under the “illegal weed” umbrella in the UK, and cannabis cultivation is not allowed. So, as an average person who wants to cultivate cannabis in your little garden, irrespective of the strain, or its THC levels, you will be illegally doing so in the United Kingdom.
The law doesn’t care if you intend to use it for personal use or you’re cultivating it for sale. If caught cultivating cannabis, one could face a jail time of 14 years and or pay a fine. However, even though cannabis cultivation is illegal and difficult for businesses in the UK, CBD can be easily imported into the country.
Growing Industrial Cannabis as a Business
Presently, UK companies can submit a license application to the British Home Office to cultivate cannabis. The license is known as the Controlled Drug Domestic License and it allows businesses to cultivate cannabis with low THC concentration (industrial hemp) to harvest its seeds and fiber.
The license does not allow the cultivation and harvest of cannabis flowers with high THC concentration and does not allow the extraction of CBD. In layman’s terms, the license doesn’t permit CBD production.
No doubt this law seems quite bizarre to a lot of people. Applying for a cannabis growing license is not a straightforward process like in other countries. Some certain requirements and provisions must be satisfied before one can even consider applying. Even at that, it is not guaranteed you get the license.
Cannabis Cultivation License in the UK
Certain provisions need to be fulfilled before one can apply for a cannabis growing license in the Uk and as mentioned earlier, it is not guaranteed that one gets it. When applying for a license to grow cannabis plants either outdoors or indoors, businesses must submit several documents, pay the application other fees, and then hope, to get awarded the license. After some years, one would then have to reapply after the expiration of that license.
How to Get a Cannabis Cultivation License in the UK
If you’re determined to get a cannabis cultivation license in the UK, here is a stepwise procedure on how to go about it according to the regulations set by the UK government.
You’d first have to go through a Disclosure and Barring Service check to ascertain that your criminal records are clean. Next, you pay a £580 application fee if you’re a new applicant or £326 for renewal. If you’re required to have a compliance visit, you’d have to pay a total fee of £1,371.
Once that is done, what follows is the submission of your application form online. Apart from this, additional documents will also be asked to be submitted alongside your application form. These include;
- Contact details and personal information
- Farm details kike size and location
- Intended type of seed to plant
- Confirmation that the specific seed is approved by the government.
Once all documents are submitted, you would have to wait between 4 to 6 weeks to get denied or approved.
Things to Consider About Cultivation License
Apart from how difficult it is to apply for a growing license, there are several other requirements one must fulfill to ensure your license is valid when approved. These requirements include;
- Plants must be cultivated far from public spaces, schools, and vehicular access.
- Upon changing farm location in the future, it’s required that you let the home office know in advance
- The license has three years of validity
- It’s required that you inform local authorities of your intention to cultivate cannabis on your land after the application must have been approved
- Each cultivation location must be separately approved and licensed.
- For rented lands, the license applies to you and not the land owner.
- Farmers with multi-year licenses are required to tender an Annual Licence Review Statement at the beginning of the year. This evaluation process also requires that you submit records of the growing season that feature sowing details, area of cultivation, and yield.
A complex regulatory landscape
The opaque and complex licensing regulation has made it hard for new entrants to venture into the UK cannabis market. These vast regulatory barriers now serve as an entry guard to the developing medical cannabis industry in the UK.
As a new entrant looking to cultivate cannabis in the UK, you’d have to secure a smooth supply chain for your product, obtain various facilities, apply for a license, comply with all regulations, secure and design an ideal site, and check for cost-effective energy sources and so on. This is quite a lot of farmers. Considering all these and especially the fact that getting the license is not guaranteed, many are discouraged from venturing into the UK cannabis market.
Conclusion
So far, only 20 active licenses have been issued to cannabis companies for cannabis cultivation between October 2018 and 2019. However, while these regulations and the tedious licensing process slow down the development of the UK cannabis market, more is still expected to come. This is because the wave of cannabis reform seems to be unstoppable and would soon hit the UK with all force. So, business opportunities will abound for UK operators shortly.
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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