While legalization of cannabis continues at a torrid pace in the United States on a state-by-state basis, the trends are global. New Frontier has created a first-of-its-kind report that examines the leading potential markets across the world, including Australia, Canada, Colombia, Israel, Germany, Jamaica, Mexico, Spain and Uruguay to help industry participants better understand the rapidly evolving global landscape and be better prepared for the expanding worldwide opportunity of legal cannabis.
John Kagia, Director of Industry Analytics, and Sam Osborn, Senior Manager of Development, presented a virtual Q&A on March 24th, discussing the report, 2016 Global Legal Cannabis Markets: A Worldwide View. In the webcast, they shed light on the current approaches to cannabis regulation in key markets and provided a global perspective to identify the top developments that will shape the growth and trajectory of legal cannabis markets around the world in the year ahead.
John began with a summary of global cannabis laws and the tendency towards clustering by region. Sam explained how New Frontier identified and prioritized the biggest disruptive trends and then constructed a scenario analysis. He shared the top 10 trends, including issues like Canadian legalization implementation, the upcoming United Nations meeting and the potential for price wars and competition.
In the Q&A, John suggested that Canada has the greatest likelihood of becoming the next major country to advance a full legalization. He also suggested that the countries most friendly to entrepreneurs are Australia, Canada and Germany based on New Frontier’s evaluation of the general legal structures, but he also called out Israel specifically for the cannabis industry. Sam discussed the trend away from indoor growing towards greenhouse production. New Frontier has issued a report on energy consumption as a major challenge for the industry. Finally, while the global opportunities are promising, Sam expects the United States to be the best overall opportunity, basing his response on illicit use rate data, though Canada could briefly surpass the U.S. if it legalizes in the next two years.
If you are interested in the 2016 Global Legal Cannabis Markets report from New Frontier, it is available for $199.
