For people not living under a rock, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that cannabis is being talked about constantly in the news. And it’s the medical and economic benefits rather than any criminal issue that’s making the noise. So with cannabis still considered an illegal drug, and less than a percentage point of the world’s population having access to medical cannabis, what has driven this change?

Of course, describing complex political and economic change in one article will naturally oversimplify, but we can take a look into the strongest drivers of this change (and we will also look at the red herrings along the way).

The impetus behind the global shift towards cannabis business is fourfold:

Medical benefits from non-intoxicating cannabidiol (CBD) The entourage effect belying a pharmaceutical modus operandi Obama finding the war on drugs ‘unhelpful’ Recreational markets showing huge economic upsides

From a European perspective, CBD is currently the largest legal cannabis market. Although it feels like it appeared overnight, CBD was in fact first tested in treating epilepsy 50 years ago by Raphael Mechoulam. It rose to prominence in 2013 when Charlotte Figi, a five year old girl with epilepsy, garnered widespread media attention in the USA, using it reduced her seizure count from 300 a day to about three per month. In the intervening six years, entrepreneurs have used this ingredient in a variety of products from those designed to be eaten such as oils, capsules or in hummus to topical treatments such as creams and balms or even in the equally novel world of vapes. CBD evangelists speak of multiple benefits from CBD, however, businesses cannot market the medical effects of a product without authorisation. This brings us on to the next issue, the difficulty of proving the medical effects of cannabis products within modern pharmaceutical frameworks.