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UK: Product Earth Envisions A Future Of Natural Medicine In The U.K. Lindsey Bartlett Forbes Friday 25 Aug 2023 It’s a substantial turnout given that cannabis is still strictly prohibited for adult use in the U.K., only legal medically with a prescription since 2018. Cannabis remains a Class B drug in the country and comes with a maximum penalty of 5 years imprisonment or a fine of up to £2,500. In the meantime, the unlicensed market thrives, rivaling Spain for the best quality weed and concentrates one can find across the pond. Besides government-licensed hemp farms and hard-to-find medicinal prescriptions, cannabis remains underground. Cooking demonstrations ran throughout the 8th annual Product Earth in the UK.Lindsey Bartlett In its 8th year, Product Earth has created a uniquely safe space and a medical cannabis sanctuary in the strict anti-cannabis landscape. The show was accessible to all people across the spectrum of ability. While cannabis sales do not take place on the floor, hundreds of retailers with everything from merchandise to food, lifestyle products, and hemp seed candles were on display. “It's a proper community,” says Jade, founder of U.K.-based hemp farm Hempress Rising. She’s a chocolate-hemp alchemist whose brand offers vegan, 4/20 dining events, and bespoke CBD products. “It's just a massive sense of community, togetherness, and oneness. It's like a family, and it's really nice to see other grassroots people, businesses, and patients. Everyone seems to just really care about each other.” Apple Leaks Detail All-New iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro Design Changes GOP Debate: Pence Blasts Vivek Ramaswamy As ‘Rookie’ Lacking Experience And DeSantis Derails Climate Change Question As Sparks Fly The speaker sessions at Product Earth covered topics like the innovation of medicinal cannabis, to the future of legalization, social clubs, landrace cultivars, and women in cannabis. There were tattoos, glass blowing, and a professional BMX competition, all alongside exhibitors that ran the gamut of the plant medicine world. Private weed clubs like Green House Seed Co. based in Amsterdam and Terpy based in Barcelona made an appearance. Mostly, attendees get to connect with hemp farms and wellness brands while admiring the art and vibes of the local cannabis culture. While it’s a legal and regulatory-approved event, with the thumbs up from local law enforcement and plenty of security, cannabis still feels hidden in plain sight. Since seeds don’t contain cannabinoids, they are the most often item sold by geneticists in the cultivation world. International leader Attitude Seed Bank, based in the U.K., was on the floor. Hemp seed candles from Crop based in England. The brand also makes a line of teas.Lindsey Bartlett “We've been around for 16 years,” says Natalia Faehnrich, Managing Director of Attitude Seeds. “We're well established and everybody knows us. That's why, if you are a breeder, you probably do want to end up in my shop. Because many of the breeders started as our customers. So they started the growing journey by buying seeds from us and for them, it's like a dream come true from the sentimental perspective even.” The top sales Attitude sees in its global seed business leads with the U.S. followed by the U.K., Australia, and Thailand, which Faehnrich says she has shipped to since the company’s launch. She says trust in the seed's genetic lineage is now more important than ever in a crowded marketplace. “There's a new seed company opening up every five minutes, and they all have the same stuff these days," she says. American brands made their presence known on the British stage including Puffco with a bustling booth throughout the trade show. Among the brands selling seeds and merchandise are American heavy-hitters Third Gen Family Farms, Fidel’s International, Doja Pak, and Sherbinskis. Denver, Colorado-born sponsor Blazy Susan represented with a pink-dosed booth and fun, inflatable joints. One company who pulled the crowds on the floor at Product Earth is Fidel’s International, a cannabis lifestyle brand based in Los Angeles with a grow in Adelanto, California. Founded in 2016, Fidel’s CEO and Founder Shant Damirdjian says he came to Product Earth to further expand his brand’s reach onto the international stage. “I’m excited, the global market is going to be amazing. It means the world to me to see people’s reactions to the product,” says Damirdjian. “It's surreal,” says the CEO. “You can tell that there are people out here showing real spirit and love for the community. It's my first time out in London, and the immense love that I'm getting, it just shows the years of work that I put in the states ended up trickling out. It's awesome." Damirdjian is Lebanese and Armenian and grew up in Beirut, Lebanon. “It instilled a lot of culture in me,” says Damirdjian. “I moved to Los Angeles when I was 18 and stayed ever since.” Regardless of how popular his brand has grown in the U.S., coined as the original creator of the hash hole, Damirdjian says he came to discover a new audience at Product Earth. “It's not just about being an established name,” he says. “It's about establishing my name in the UK.” Fidel’s founder has witnessed some impressive small-batch growers that are building a name in the underground. For safety, a few of those growers choose to remain anonymous and will not show their face. "If you tune-in to the community, you'll find there are actually good growers over here,” says Damirdjian. “Once those doors open and they can actually be comfortable about who they are through events like this, through culture-breaking events that kind of shift the paradigm over here, you're going to see more and more people come out of the U.K. that are actually good growers. They're just small growers.” Cannabis brand RTZ Rootz came back to its literal roots for its first showing at Product Earth, as its founder Sam hails originally from the Manchester area of England. His company is growing weed, operating retail, as well as a consumption lounge in Tenerife, an island off the coast of Spain. The founder also has plants in the ground in Thailand as of this year. Sam says it’s equally surreal to come home again even as the legal market hasn’t opened up yet for him to enter it. His booth showcased unique soccer jerseys with the RTZ logo and other merch at Product Earth. If England legalizes, the founder says he would love to bring RTZ Rootz back home in the future. “Yeah, of course,” says Sam. “Obviously, my family lives in the UK, so for me, it's still home and always will be. But because of the stipulations of the work that I want to do, in this climate, I could never live comfortably.” The founder says in the UK, he feels, “you're always looking around your shoulder. You're essentially selling drugs. That's something I don't want to do. I want to be a consumer product. I want to be a legitimate, licensed company. Knowing in Thailand, we're able to do that fully above board, it's amazing.” RTZ has a license to grow in Thailand with the maximum amount of lights per brand, and plans to expand into retail over the next year. Change may be on the horizon for his home country, though. As Germany moved one step closer to legalizing cannabis for adult use, Sam predicts that England will likely follow suit once they see Germany succeed. Matt Clifton is the CEO of Product Earth who came on board to produce the event in 2019 joining its founder James Walton. “It’s criminal that it is criminal. We need legal access. That is what we’re trying to do,” says Clifton. Clifton joined Product Earth after 12 years working at Facebook. He left the tech giant to follow his “passion and dream” of bringing art and natural medicine to the U.K. “We are a cultural celebration of natural medicine and creativity,” says Clifton. The show is fully legal and fully insured, says the CEO, who doesn’t limit Product Earth’s scope to cannabis but includes all natural medicine and wellness businesses. When it comes to how England views plant medicine, Clifton says, “the UK is quite divided” on its cannabis stance. “There's too much stigma for people to listen." With great cannabis comes great responsibility, says Clifton. “If you focus on the product, not the people, you will fail,” he says. “We focus on the people. Prohibition is the problem. If you want to fight the War on Drugs, win the patients’ battle first.” Peter of OG Crush, a U.K.-based company that makes tech including rosin presses for cannabis extraction, says the purpose of the event is to bring the cannabis community closer. “That's the main idea,” says Peter, “that they understand a little bit more how the cannabis community works in the U.K. and what can be done here so that it grows more and more.” He urges folks to be safe in the unlicensed market. “We are in the gray zone,” says Peter. “You have to always look over your shoulder. You just really have to watch out. You're flying under the radar.” Once attendees leave Product Earth, they step out of the hopeful, idealized plant medicine glimpse of the future, and back into England’s restrictive reality. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lindseybartlett/2023/08/24/product-earth-envisions-a-future-of-natural-medicine-in-the-uk/
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