WITH an estimated 221 million people worldwide consuming cannabis, a massive market, the legal industry should be thriving. Yet, the reality is far less impressive.

Despite projections of a $300 billion global market by 2035, the legal cannabis industry faces significant challenges: collapsing firms, commoditised products and an enduring reliance on legacy supply.

Cannabis presents one of the greatest economic opportunities of the century, but the challenges in seizing that opportunity are equally immense.

A global industry in crisis

The cannabis industry’s failure is structural. For decades, cannabis production thrived in basements, lofts and smallscale operations with minimal overheads. These legacy methods, while inefficient, delivered exceptional quality. Legalisation, however, imposed the burdens of high fixed costs and industrial-scale production. This shift forced firms to prioritise efficiency over quality, setting off a vicious cycle: lower-quality products capture less value, forcing producers to cut costs, which further degrades quality.

The result is a race to the bottom, where firms compete on price and THC content alone, reducing a highly differentiated product to a generic commodity.

Nowhere is the missed opportunity more evident than in the collapse of publicly traded cannabis companies in Canada, the United States and Europe. Stock prices have plummeted, firms have shuttered and the legacy market continues to dominate – especially in the premium segment. The more these firms attempt to scale, the harder it becomes to maintain the quality that consumers demand.

Lessons from Malta and Greece

Malta and Greece serve as stark warnings. Both countries announced ambitious plans to become European cannabis hubs, yet their industries floundered almost immediately. The reasons are clear: poor planning, inadequate market analysis and a failure to align policy with patient and consumer needs. Instead of becoming centres of excellence, they became cautionary tales, examples of what happens when optimism and ambition aren’t matched by strategy and substance.

Jersey must avoid these pitfalls. Optimism and a can-do attitude are essential for tackling big challenges, but hope is not a strategy. Success demands hard-nosed analysis, attention to detail, and a clear understanding of the challenges.

Why Jersey can win: Tipping the balance

Unlike larger markets burdened by scale and bureaucracy, Jersey’s small size and adaptability offers a distinct advantage. We have the opportunity to create a worldclass cannabis industry, where craft quality meets regulatory compliance.

The key lies in recognising cannabis for what it is: a flower, not an industrial ingredient. Treating cannabis as an ingredient to be manufactured misses the point entirely. It is the quality of the flower itself that defines its therapeutic potential. It is the final product.

A regulatory framework built around cultivation standards, such as those outlined in WHO Annex 2, would ensure that quality is embedded at every stage. This approach avoids the need for post-harvest remediation techniques like irradiation, which degrade the product. By focusing on craft cultivation, Jersey can offer products that rival even the best legacy cannabis while adhering to the highest compliance standards.

In an industry where the drive for efficiency often takes precedence, WHO standards like Annex 2 tip the balance back toward what matters most: quality.

A vision for leadership

This isn’t just about creating an economically viable industry – it’s about leadership. Jersey can position itself as the gold standard for medicinal cannabis by rejecting the flawed models of other jurisdictions. Instead, we can chart our own course, prioritising small-batch craft cultivation, adopting stringent quality standards and leveraging renewable energy for sustainable production.

Deputy Tom Binet, as Health Minister, has a pivotal role to play in shaping this future. By championing a quality-first approach, he could ensure Jersey avoids the pitfalls of other jurisdictions and becomes a model for the world. This isn’t about creating barriers, it’s about building trust with patients, investors and global buyers. It’s about proving that cannabis can be both a high-quality product and a compliant one.

A crossroads for Jersey

Jersey stands at a crossroads. We can follow the path of jurisdictions like Malta and Greece, rushing to scale an industry that collapses under its own weight. Or we can embrace what makes us unique – our small scale, horticultural heritage and commitment to regulatory excellence – and build an industry where craft meets compliance.

Imagine a Jersey where the cannabis industry reflects the very best of what our island has to offer. A Jersey where patients receive the care they deserve, where producers thrive on the strength of their craft, and where our global reputation for quality grows alongside our economy.

The Island has a once-in-a-century opportunity to lead the global cannabis industry. The decisions we make now will determine whether this industry becomes a missed opportunity or a defining success.

Let’s make the right choices today so that tomorrow, we can look back and say: we got it right.

The health contradiction

In Jersey, doctors will soon be able to prescribe medication to end a terminally-ill patient’s life if they are suffering unbearably – granting them the dignity of a peaceful death. Yet that same doctor might hesitate – or outright refuse – to prescribe medicinal cannabis to alleviate suffering for a patient with years, even decades, of life ahead of them.

Why? Because cannabis hasn’t gone through the traditional clinical trial process. You know, the same process that gave us Vioxx and thalidomide – drugs that passed the so-called gold standard of safety, only to harm or kill people once on the market. At least those drugs were patentable. In an IP-driven healthcare system, that’s what really matters.

The absurdity doesn’t end there. A new generation of “novel” therapeutics, personalised gene therapies and other tailored treatments, is emerging. These therapies don’t fit neatly into the clinical trial framework but get the green light because they’re patentable and profitable.

Cannabis, meanwhile, remains in limbo. It doesn’t need to fit the system. It has 3,000 years of real-world evidence to back it up, dating back to Hua Tuo, the father of modern surgery.

Yet many patients are denied access because cannabis lacks a clinical trial stamp of approval.

This contradiction is glaring. If unbearable suffering in terminally ill patients justifies assisted dying, why deny patients access to a plant that could alleviate their pain and improve their quality of life? Isn’t withholding potentially life-saving therapy a form of harm?

We’ve allowed people to die with dignity. Can we let them live with dignity, too?

The problem with IP-based healthcare

Many modern medicines have plantbased origins. Aspirin comes from willow bark. Digoxin is sourced from foxglove. Morphine comes from poppies. The raw forms of these plants often work better than their synthesised counterparts.

Take aspirin. For centuries, people used willow bark to relieve pain. Then chemists isolated its active ingredient, salicin, and synthesised acetylsalicylic acid. While the synthetic version was patentable and scalable, it also came with more side-effects. Modern studies suggest that raw willow bark is gentler on the stomach than aspirin.

Similarly, Artemisia annua produces artemisinin, a compound vital for combating malaria. Artemisinin-based combination therapies often outperform synthetic antimalarial drugs, especially in drug-resistant cases.

If natural remedies often outperform synthetic ones, why don’t we rely on the plants? Because plants can’t be patented. If a treatment can’t sustain the IP-based healthcare model, it risks being sidelined no matter how effective it might be.

Cannabis is an even more extraordinary example. Unlike other plant-based medicines, it contains compounds that mimic chemicals.

The Endocannabinoid System (ECS)

If you’ve ever experienced a “runner’s high” you’ve felt your body’s natural version of THC. The molecule responsible for this euphoria is nearly identical to the active compound in cannabis. Even colostrum, breast milk, contains similar compounds that calm newborns and stimulate their appetite.

Cannabis interacts with the body’s endocannabinoid system, a network affecting appetite, mood, pain and immune response. When the system is out of balance, chronic conditions like arthritis, migraines and digestive disorders can arise. Cannabis can help restore that balance.

The endocannabinoid system regulates homeostasis through cannabinoid receptors in the central nervous and immune systems. Nearly every disease involves one or both systems, which explains why cannabis seems to have such broad therapeutic potential.

Cannabis is the only known plant that produces THC. It also creates a range of essential oils, known as terpenes, that influence mood, from uplifting to sedative. But these aren’t found inside the flower, they’re on the surface in tiny resin glands called trichomes.

Like other plant-based medicines, cannabis works best in its natural form. Not synthesised. Not manufactured. As a flower.

When IP and the endocannabinoid system collide

Attempts to manufacture a cannabis substitute with the same effects have led to catastrophic results. In 2016, a French clinical trial aimed to develop a synthetic drug targeting the endocannabinoid system. Several participants suffered permanent brain damage. One died.

Cannabis, in contrast, has been used safely for millennia. Yet it doesn’t fit the IP model and it’s sidelined in favour of patentable alternatives that often fail spectacularly.

Cannabis is a flower

Cannabis isn’t an ingredient. It’s a flower with the potential to transform lives – if we treat it with the respect it deserves.

The stigma problem

Resistance to cannabis isn’t just about clinical trials or patents. It’s also about stigma.

In a recent States Assembly debate, cannabis patients were implicitly associated with laziness, poor intelligence or mental-health issues. One Member even joked about walking past Amsterdam’s cannabis coffee shops and “still managing to get a master’s degree”. These comments perpetuate harmful stereotypes and dismiss the suffering of patients who rely on cannabis for relief.

And let’s address the psychosis myth. While psychoactive substances are linked to mental-health disorders, evidence tying cannabis to psychosis or schizophrenia remains inconclusive. Numerous studies have found no causal link between cannabis use and psychosis in individuals without genetic predispositions. That said, other research suggests a potential connection under specific conditions, highlighting the need for further investigation.

One striking fact stands out: at the turn of the 20th century, when cannabis use was largely confined to jazz clubs and bohemian subcultures, schizophrenia rates among adult Caucasian males were around 1%. Today, recreational cannabis use is widespread, yet the rate of schizophrenia remains unchanged at 1%.

But this isn’t about coffee shops in Amsterdam. It’s about dignity, quality, and respect – for patients and for the plant itself.

Like Jersey Lifts for medicinal cannabis

Some politicians use high prescription numbers as a political weapon, suggesting patients in Jersey are abusing the system. The reality? Medicinal cannabis use is just as widespread in the UK. The difference is that UK patients have better options.

Imagine a Jersey where taxis are illegal, and “Jersey Lifts” are the only option. Then taxis are legalised. Companies rush in with big business plans, raise money and buy fleets of taxis. What do you think would happen? Exactly what’s happening now: just like the UK cannabis market, where roughly 95% of medicinal cannabis patients still rely on legacy sources, despite the rise of legal clinics.

To compete, Jersey must understand its true competitors, legacy markets, and its consumers, who are also patients. Effective regulation must ensure that legal options meet patient needs and inspire trust. This may be uncomfortable. Perhaps it’s easier to imagine a world where medicinal cannabis doesn’t resemble recreational cannabis. But ignoring the reality risks policy failures and missed opportunities.