Cannabis In Europe Is Smelling Good: No Great Upheavals Or Unexpected Shifts, Says Report

Prohibition Partners recently launched its 8th edition of the European Cannabis Report, which referred to this past year as stable for medical marijuana (MMJ).

"There have been no great upheavals or unexpected large-scale shifts in the industry, however, it has not been static," per the report, which added that there's been a steady development of existing trends. 

The UK market grew and continues to move at a strong pace, which is encouraging for the regional industry and global suppliers.

In Germany, there is growing diversity of products and players, which is resulting in healthy competition as "steady growth and sizeable margins in the middle and downstream segments of the supply chain mean that the market can continue to support a high number of operators."

Denmark and Portugal are increasingly becoming the main hubs of European cultivation, causing the Netherlands and Canada to see their proportion of the market share decline. 

Supply Chains

The report notes that supply chains are becoming increasingly decentralized, with the past year seeing a notable increase in non-European supply coming in as products that need processing in Germany, Portugal or the UK before being made available to patients.

"A promising move towards regional harmonization in product standardization is underway, with a draft monograph for medical cannabis flower published for comment recently by the European Medicines Agency. Publication of the finished monograph will represent the first time that there is a true European standard for a medical cannabis product."

2022 Financials

In financial terms though, 2022 was a difficult year for all industries and the medical cannabis industry was no different although promising signs have emerged in recent months with steady growth and development, both at the regulatory level and in terms of market size and industrial activity. 

European MMJ has enjoyed steady growth over the past year and is projected to reach over €550 million euros (nearly $597 million) in sales by the end of this year. The UK is set to become the second-largest European market over this time, as has been predicted by analysts.

The European CBD market remains complex though increasingly the picture is becoming clearer. Normalization of various channels of the industry is slowly moving forward, though the wait for novel food authorizations continues. The report notes that the combined market size of all CBD categories in 2023 is over €2 billion ($2.17 billion). 

And four European countries are in the process of developing regulatory models for an adult-use cannabis market: Germany, Czech Republic, Switzerland and the Netherlands. "These early adopters are likely to set a precedent for other countries to follow, and may well form the blueprints for a European adult-use cannabis market."
To read the entire report, click here.