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EUROPEAN HEMP
(Second of 4 parts)
Part 1: Europe’s tough row to hoe: Lack of clarity on CBD, THC
Upcoming:
Part 3:Monday, July 2: Europe’s futile efforts to slow marijuana use
Part 4:Thursday, July 5: Demand strong for advice on CBD, startups, technology

If Europe doesn’t move fast to make reasonable rules for THC levels in industrial hemp, we’ll be missing an historic opportunity to maintain our rightful place as the leader of the crop’s revival in the 20th and 21st centuries.

While most European countries follow an EU directive that sets THC limits for hemp at 0.2%, leading hemp nations around the world operate on a generally accepted global standard of 0.3%. And some, increasingly, much higher.

The negative effects of the situation in Europe are evident up and down the value chain – particularly in the food and medicinal hemp sectors.

It begins, appropriately, with the seed. The 0.2% THC “in the field” limit mandated by the EU means European scientists and researchers haven’t been incentivized to develop the high-yield seed varieties and high-CBD strains that are now in great demand. Such strains are absent any significant THC, but can still exceed the 0.2% limit. At the same time, several high-yielding hemp seed varieties, especially from Eastern Europe, are not viable for production under the 0.2% THC constraint.Time, value and money already have been lost.

FIRST OF FOUR PARTS
Upcoming:
Thursday, June 28: Europe’s Great THC Debate: Get moving or fall behind
Monday, July 2: Europe’s futile efforts to slow marijuana use
Thursday, July 5: Demand strong for advice on CBD, startups, technology

A riddle set in motion by European Union authorities earlier this year has hemp food producers on the continent scratching their heads this summer. Changes in how CBD is considered under the EU’s Novel Foods Directive, never announced but eventually noticed by some producers, is sure to cause more confusion in an already confusing sector.

While a previous statement on CBD in the Novel Foods Catalog took a purely descriptive, and somewhat vague, approach, stakeholders recently noticed the definition had been re-written to state that any products which have more CBD than the plants from which they are derived are now considered novel foods. This affects particularly what’s generically referred to as “hemp flower oils,” industrial hemp green matter rendered in concentrated or extract forms. The change has the potential to throw yet another wrench into the European hemp food sector.

What’s novel food?

Novel food is defined as food that was not consumed to a considerable degree by citizens of the EU prior to 1997, when the first regulation on novel food came into force. Novel food can be newly developed, innovative food, food produced using new technologies and production processes, and food traditionally eaten outside the EU. The regulation requires such foods be safe and be properly labeled so as not to mislead consumers, among other requirements. The upshot for producers is a more burdensome marketplace as novel foods undergo stringent and costly authorization requirements.

Stakeholders noticed the definition had been changed, perhaps as far back as November 2017.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a CBD drug - a landmark decision that will trigger the health agency to seek rescheduling from the DEA.

FDA approves cannabis-derived medicine; DEA must weigh in is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Berlin-based MH medical hemp GmbH (MH) has applied for licenses to import and sell medical cannabis in German pharmacies, with approval expected this summer. MH is in the process of obtaining Wholesale Trading Authorization for human medicinal products as well as a Narcotic Drug License as outlined in the German Narcotic Drug Act.

Next evolutionary step for MH

“This is the next step in the evolution of the company. It’s a natural space for us to be in,” said Joscha Krauss, MH’s CEO. “The demand for medical cannabis in Germany is by far higher than its supply – especially when high quality standards lead to tight bottlenecks.”

Germany’s medical marijuana law, which went into effect in spring 2017, makes it easy for patients to access cannabis for medicinal purposes, removing a complicated system in which special authorization was required to obtain cannabis remedies in the past. Patients are only required to have a doctor’s prescription, and can collect reimbursement via their health insurance program.

“The fact that health insurance companies will cover the cost of medical cannabis gives Germany a leading role on a global level,” Krauss added, and empowers both patients and doctors in their efforts to manage patient needs.

(This is an abridged version of a package that appears in the May-June issue of Marijuana Business Magazine.) North American marijuana entrepreneurs who believe it’s too early to look at international opportunities should reconsider their position. Federally licensed cultivation companies in Canada – Canopy Growth, Tilray, Aurora Cannabis and Cronos Group, to name a few – already are […]

Time is right for marijuana entrepreneurs to enter the global market is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Canada’s proposed licensing structure for recreational marijuana will create significant opportunities for additional players, and “hundreds” of businesses are positioning themselves to capitalize on the market - even before the final regulations have been released.

New licenses open doors for Canadian marijuana entrepreneurs is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Leading global stakeholders will gather at HempToday Center in Poland Aug. 24-25, 2018 to survey the burgeoning medical hemp sector amid exploding demand worldwide for CBD.

European blue-chip CBD brand CannabiGold is the host sponsor for “The Future of Medical Hemp,” an exclusive gathering limited to 25 persons total. Twenty accreditations are still available for the Summit at €900 each. Signups before the end of June receive an early-bird rate of €700.

Attendees will get an in-depth look at a wide range of industry topics including investment, product development & innovation, global medical hemp hot spots, the regulatory environment, biochemistry of cannabinoids, and cannabinoid production.

Featured presenters are:

Boaz Wachtel, Chairman & co-founder, CresoPharma, a nutraceuticals company traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) since autumn 2016. Wachtel was co-founder and former managing director of MMJ Phytotech, Australia’s first publicly traded medical cannabis company. He is also the co-founder of the International Medical Cannabis Patient Coalition (IMCPC).

The much anticipated 2018 Farm Bill that would remove hemp from federal narcotics lists in the USA goes before a Senate Agriculture Committee tomorrow, Wednesday, June 13.

The removal would be through the Hemp Farming Act of 2018, included in the overall farming legislation, which also defines hemp as an agricultural commodity and would give individual states the opportunity to become the primary regulators of hemp production, allow hemp researchers to apply for competitive federal grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and make hemp farmers eligible for crop insurance.

Rare bipartisanship

Following the amendment process, which could last several days, the full committee will vote to send the legislation to the Senate floor, possibly by the end of this month. The measure would become law only if it is eventually signed by the unpredictable Donald Trump, Idiot President.

The committee released the current version of the 2018 Farm Bill earlier this month.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, introduced the bipartisan Hemp Farming Act in April along with fellow Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, and with Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. Twenty-four other Senators from the two main political parties in the USA also are supporting the measure in a rare example of bipartisanship in the sharply polarized political scene in the USA.

Australia-based Elixinol Group has put up the first-ever advertising for a CBD product in Japan with installation of a billboard in Tokyo’s Omotesando train station.

“Japan has the third largest consumer economy in the world, and the audience is both sophisticated and health conscious,” said Elixinol CEO Paul Benhaim after the billboard went up earlier this month.

CBD is legal in Japan, but CBD producers were heretofore not able to advertise them.

Breakthrough with Japanese authorities

“Elixinol has been supplying hemp oil products to Japan for over three years, however up until now we have not been able to actively market the product range,” said Makoto Matsumaru, CEO of Elixinol Japan. The approval came after months working with authorities in Japan, which has a very strong historical connection to hemp dating back to ancient times, Matsumaru added.

“Approval to commercially advertise our Hemp Oil Drops is a major win for the hemp industry,” Matsumaru said.

Cannabis stakeholders and activists are drawing positive energy from four days of hearings during which doctors, patients, and researchers presented analysis and outlined the benefits of cannabis before the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO convened a special 40th meeting of its Expert Committee entirely dedicated to cannabis for the first time. The meeting was held in Geneva.

“In the year of its 70th birthday, the World Health Organization is finally taking steps to repair an injustice that it co-created: the affirmation that cannabis had no medical value, based on biased scientific processes,” the Foundation for Alternative Approaches to Addiction (FAAAT), said in a statement.

FAAAT is a transnational non-governmental, non-partisan and non-profit organization working on the issue of addiction, controlled drugs, and plant or substances liable to produce addiction. From Barcelona, Geneva, New-York, Paris Vienna, FAAAT & do tankcentralizes the collaboration of a global network of experts.

FAAAT has been pressuring the United Nations system to strengthen scientific methodology and comprehensiveness of data regarding medical cannabis and its derivatives since 2009.

With all the big hemp money chasing CBD, its no wonder that Isolate Extraction Systems is flourishing. Well-positioned in the expanding hemp value chain, IES, Louisville, Colorado, USA has predicated a big part of its future on growing demand for cannabidiol. The company already has more than 100 extraction installations in 45 U.S. states that turn out compounds from hemp and other raw material via its CO2-based extraction technology, CEO Kelly Knutson said.

IES is currently in the process of designing and building a new CO2 machine that is not only faster and more efficient than ethanol, butane, or steam, but which can also automatically separate terpenes, oils and waxes mid-process, a major advancement.

The investment represented in this highly sophisticated technology is considerable. Extraction systems can range in price from several hundred thousand Euros for a baby one, to millions for large industrial operations. Aside from IES’s home market in the U.S., Knutson sees demand developing from Australia to Europe, in Canada, and Central & South America. And while the extraction technology sub-sector may be a particularly sweet spot in the CBD value chain, big money is chasing the business at every link. All of that is good to hear.

In the fields and workshops

But machines to harvest the full promise of hemp also are needed closer to the earth, where most of the current investments are in blood, sweat and tears over some dream machine. In pockets around the world, independent entrepreneurs – engineers and other problem solvers – are developing small-scale, specialized hemp machines, usually providing the needed cash too.

A United States Senate committee has backed efforts to maintain an industrial hemp seed bank, recommending that the federal Agricultural Research Service set aside $500,000 for the project.

The Committee cited increasing demand for hemp-based products, and the expansion of hemp farming in the USA in putting forth the proposal. Forty-one U.S. states now have hemp legislation on the books.

The recommendation came in a report attached to a bill that funds the U.S. Department of Agriculture next year. “When the nation’s industrial hemp germplasm was destroyed in the 1980s, researchers lost access to publicly available germplasm for plant breeding purposes,” the committee noted in the report.

There are no publicly available germplasm collections of hemp (Cannabis Sativa) in North America after scores of seed collections acquired for studies conducted in the late 1970s were destroyed because the government never expected hemp would return as a crop.

“The scarcity of high quality hemp seed is a roadblock to the development of an American hemp industry,” Eric Steenstra, president of Vote Hemp, told Forbes. “We are extremely pleased that Congress is providing funding to ensure that USDA will once again collect and store hemp germplasm and make it available to American farmers and researchers.”

After purchasing the PURE brand of hemp accessories last year, leading European hemp company Hempro Int.GmbH & Co., Dusseldorf, Germany, says it is now looking to expand distribution of the line of hemp backpacks, rucksacks and bags around the globe, says CEO Rebecca Kruse.

With its acquisition of PURE, Hempro Int. strengthened its position in hemp textile-based accessories. Because the company had been selling PURE bags since 2001, then became a licensee in 2005, its knowledge of the brand and bringing it fully in house opens broader marketing and product development possibilities, Kruse said.

PURE’s pedigree

The PURE brand dates to 1995, when its PURE HF Collection of bags was first introduced to the market. Hempro Int. has been selling PURE accessories since 2005, which means the company is intimate with the brand values that have driven the products’ success in the marketplace.

“In the case of PURE, we know our customers value functional design, quality and durability – and those are what the brand delivers – backed up by a guarantee. We make it standard practice to not just live up to expectations, but exceed them,” Kruse said.

Finding perfect ‘fit’

Beyond quality factors, brand personality and character strongly contribute toward finding the right “market fit,” not just for the customer but up and down the value chain, according to Kruse. And a key consideration for Hempro Int. and its PURE suppliers and customers is the sustainability the products offer: All materials that go into PURE accessories are traceable back 100% to ecological sources.

A major investment company is putting 1 million Canadian dollars ($780,000) on the table for aspiring cannabis entrepreneurs in Canada. Canopy Rivers Corp.’s program is open to entrepreneurs looking to access Health Canada’s proposed new licenses for micro-cultivation, nurseries, industrial hemp, processing, analytical testing, retailers and other emerging segments. “This is a way to help […]

Investment firm offers CA$1M seed money to Canadian marijuana entrepreneurs is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Nine products will vie for “Hemp Product of the Year” honors during this year’s European Industrial Hemp Association’s (EIHA) 15th annual conference June 12-13 in Cologne. The competition, in its inaugural edition, aims to promote innovative applications and markets for industrial hemp-based products.

The award is sponsored by HempConsult GmbH, the Dusseldorf-based consultancy.

Delegates will vote winners

A jury of representatives from the EIHA advisory board, Germany’s nova-Institute, and sponsors of the annual conference nominated nine entries in three categories. The nominatees will give 10-minute presentations on June 12, Day 1 of the conference. Conference delegates will then vote the winners, who will be announced during a ceremony that same evening.

The nominated companies also will will have their innovations in display in a shared exhibition space provided by the nova-Institute during the conference.

The Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance (CHTA) has embarked on a search for a full-time executive director to replace part-time director Kim Shukla, who has left the organization, the Alliance said in a release.

“As new regulations open the door for industrial hemp to provide key natural health products to Canadians and globally, our organization is preparing for significant growth,” CHTA President Russ Crawford said in announcing the search. “Hemp is coming of age in Canadian agriculture.”

Canada’s potential

With a modernized regulatory regime, the Canadian agricultural hemp industry is poised to grow to $1 billion in sales by 2023, creating 3,000 new jobs over the next five years, CHTA said in the release

Coming changes in Canadian cannabis regulations including an Industrial Hemp Regulation require a full-time executive leader as hemp stakeholders turn their attention to the potentially lucrative opportunities in CBD under the anticipated new rules, and as CHTA grows, the Alliance noted.

Push for clarity on CBD

Part of a broader Cannabis Act covering both marijuana and hemp, the new regulations would allow farmers to sell hemp flowers and leaves – parts of the plant required to process CBD which have heretofore been illegal to harvest in Canada. The CHTA, farmers and even Canadian doctors have pushed for clear rules on CBD, citing the sector’s economic potential and the promise the compound has shown in treating certain maladies. Most notable, Canadian hemp proponents point to the U.S. CBD market, where sales are predicted to reach $2-3 billion over the next 4-5 years. U.S. CBD product sales in 2016 were estimated at just $202 million, according to Hemp Biz Journal (USA).

Organizers of the Balkannabis Expo June 1-3 in Athens say signups for the first-ever event are brisk as the Expo announced it has rounded out the speaker panel for a summit devoted strictly to hemp that is a part of the three-day program.

Belgian natural builder Wolf Jordan, Jordan & Co and Italian hemp entrepreneur Rachele Invernizzi, South Hemp Tecno, a hemp processing operation in southern Italy are among international presenters who have joined the program for the Hemp Summit.

The three-day Expo is set for TECHNOPOLIS City of Athens, a cultural and exhibition space adjacent to the the Athens historic center and the Acropolis. A separate conference is scheduled for “MedCannabis Science.” Balkannabis Expo will feature cannabis culture workshops; a large exhibition area and international trade show; networking spaces; masterclasses; a market area; music and other artistic performances.

Also added to the Hemp Summit speaker lineup are Samuel Brookfield-Dardenne, TechniChanvre, France; Dr. Eleni Tsaliki, Dr. Apostolos Kalyvas and Dr. Eleni Malupa, all of the Hellenic Agricultural Organisation Demeter, Greece; and Robert C. Clarke, BioAgronomics Group Consultants, USA

They join previously announced speakers Rafael Dulon, HANF FARM GmbH, Germany; Daniel Kruse, Hempro Int. GmbH and HempConsult GmbH, Germany; Boris Banas, CBDepot, Slovakia; Morris Beegle, NoCo-Hemp-Expo, USA; Hana Gabrielova, Hempoint, Czech Republic; Paul Benhaim, Hemp Foods Australia and Elixinol (USA); Joscha Krauss, Medical Hemp, Germany, and Kehrt Reyher, Editor & Publisher, HempToday.

When the team at Colorado, USA-based PowerZone Agriculture started to think about farmers and hemp, they put one idea first: ROI – return on investment. That started with the fundamental goal to engineer harvesting and processing technology that could be bolted onto machines and power sources farmers already have.

“Our equipment is designed to maximize yield per acre,” Corbett Hefner, V.P Research, Development and Engineering MG at Colorado, USA-based PowerZone said of the project team’s focus on financial return for the company’s clients. “No capital is tied up in dedicated harvesting machinery that sits idle for the majority of the year,” Hefner added. The entire harvesting platform can be removed in 30 minutes or less so the tractor can be used for other farm operations, Hefner noted.

Focus on flower yield

The system is designed for optimal flower yield for CBD oil and to collect hemp straw; it can crawl through the field at a rate of 12 acres per hour, and features cut options ranging between six inches and 15 feet off the ground. PowerZone’s Fiber Track Genesis decorticating equipment can process up to 10 tons of hemp straw per hour, turning it into hurd for building materials.

The harvesting system, which is fully portable, is designed to harvest clone plants as well as large fields. Primary crop and fiber can be collected in a single pass, reducing hours in the field.

The Fiber Track Genesis decortication line is designed to produce long, strong fiber as well as hurd particles for insulation. The Grasshopper chaff cart is completely self contained, drawing no hydraulic power from the combine.

A draft law to greatly expand medical cannabis regulations in Thailand is expected to be unveiled this week, a move that executives say will open the door to potentially millions of dollars in investments. In the works since last year, the draft narcotics code will permit medical marijuana research on humans. The law will first […]

Thailand set to unveil medical cannabis law is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Speakers from South Africa, Mongolia and Poland are on the program for the Hemp Food, Health & Beauty Summit at HempToday Center May 25-26.

Entrepreneur Arne Verhoef, founder of S.A.-based HempHub Anar Artur, CEO at HempMongolia, and Jan Zytko, JZ Consulting, Warsaw, an expert in brands, marketing and distribution chains, will join an international speaker panel that will address delegates from 12 countries from around the globe who are signed up for the event, hosted at HempToday Center in Poland. Only three places remain open for the two-day summit.

[See the full lineup of speakers]

Verhoef will give an overview of the hemp scene in South Africa and talk about his experiences as a startup. A biologist by training, he is also a horticulturist and developer of health products based on CBD hemp and other healing plants. He also manages The Stokvel Collective, a Community Supported Agriculture project that seeks to spread regenerative agriculture through grassroots action in Africa.