A Tilray employee seals hashish flowers in a bag at their Portugal farm.
“We should be the new El Dorado of medical cannabis production,” mentioned agronomist Jose Martins as dozens of employees harvested marijuana in vibrant sunshine at a farm in southeastern Portugal.
The nation is quick turning into a European hub for medical hashish, with its heat temperate subtropical local weather — usually in comparison with California’s — making it a super place to develop the plant.
“No other country in Europe has better environmental conditions,” Martins advised AFP on the plantation, which is surrounded by razor wire and infrared cameras.
Set in hills close to Serpa dotted with olive timber and cork oaks, the 5.4-hectare (13.3-acre) farm owned by the Portuguese pharmaceutical firm FAI Therapeutic produces round 30 tonnes of hashish flowers a 12 months.
They had been arrange two years in the past after a flood of international hashish producers had been drawn to Portugal due to its favorable local weather and laws.
Greater than 60 corporations are at present licensed to develop, produce or distribute medical hashish merchandise there, with 170 extra having utilized for permission.
Portugal exported some 12 tonnes of cannabis-based medical merchandise final 12 months, primarily to Germany — Europe’s largest market — in addition to to Poland, Spain and Australia, in response to the nationwide medicine company, Inframed.
A employee on the FAI Therapeutic hashish farm in southeastern Portugal.
Excessive requirements
However the business has even increased ambitions.
“Portugal is clearly at the forefront of European countries producing cannabis for medical use,” mentioned Jose Tempero, the medical director at Tilray, a Canadian multinational that arrange a hashish farm close to the central city of Cantanhede in 2019, straight after Portugal legalized marijuana-based medicines.
The farm has its personal labs and processing and packaging websites, with its hashish oil promoting as far afield as Latin America.
The Portuguese increase is fueled by rising international demand for medical hashish for power ache, the unwanted effects of most cancers remedy, some types of epilepsy and different illnesses.
Round 50 nations have up to now permitted the usage of cannabis-based medicines, and that quantity is anticipated to rise.
The worldwide medical hashish market is anticipated to develop to over $65 billion by 2030 from $16.6 billion final 12 months, in response to consulting agency Grand View Analysis.
“There is a huge demand from patients,” mentioned Bernard Babel, the pinnacle of German hashish pharmaceutical agency Avextra, which arrange a part of its enterprise in Portugal.
Inside a greenhouse on the Canadian multinational Tilray’s farm in Cantanhede, Portugal.
Portugal’s rising significance within the rising business all the way down to greater than its sunny local weather, nevertheless.
Babel mentioned it has “very good regulatory framework” due to its 2019 laws which units well-defined high quality requirements, he added.
‘Rising acceptance’
Pedro Ferraz da Costa, CEO of the Iberfar Group, the mother or father agency of the Serpa farm, mentioned these laws reassure worldwide prospects “that the products leaving the country offer safety guarantees”.
Whereas Portugal could also be on the forefront of medical hashish manufacturing in Europe, sufferers within the nation complain they’ve issue acquiring the medicine since many medical doctors are nonetheless reluctant to prescribe them and their price is just not absolutely coated by state well being care.
“There is a lack of information” throughout the medical occupation on this “very conservative” nation, mentioned Lara Silva, whose six-year-old daughter suffers from a severe type of epilepsy that has hampered her motor and cognitive improvement.
When she determined to deal with her daughter with CBD, a spinoff of hashish two years in the past, she mentioned she needed to order it from Spain.
Tilray’s Tempero mentioned medical marijuana nonetheless suffers from a sure “stigma” however he sees “a growing acceptance of cannabis beyond its recreational use”.
© 2024 AFP
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‘Enormous demand’: Portugal goals of turning into medical hashish hub (2024, December 10)
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