Iceland’s Opportunity to Lead in Cannabis Sustainability, Economics, and Wellness
🚀 It’s been a whirlwind start to New Holland Group’s fall conference speaking tour. I just flew from the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Chicago, where I moderated the heavy-hitting International Cannabis Panel, to Reykjavik, Iceland, for the Hemp for Future Conference, where I spoke to lawmakers, educators, activists, patients, and business owners about what Iceland can expect when it legalizes hemp and medicinal cannabis.
This wasn’t my first time speaking about cannabis policy reform. Two years ago, I gave the keynote at the International Cannabis Business Conference in Barcelona, Spain on what countries in the European Union could learn from North America’s cannabis legalization experience. Fast forward to today—less than two years after delivering that speech—Spain published its draft of medical cannabis regulations.
Every time cannabis legalization comes up, policymakers focus on tax revenue, job creation, and crime reduction. But I believe the more compelling focus of drug policy reform should be harm reduction—both reducing deaths from opiate overdoses, impaired driving and addiction caused by pharmaceuticals and alcohol and in improving health outcomes through access to medical cannabis for conditions like MS, glaucoma, Parkinson’s and complex PTSD, among others..
Cannabis also holds positive potential for broader definitions of harm reduction—particularly at a moment when climate change and extreme weather are top of mind for millions of people around the globe.
🌍 Hemp and cannabis are sustainable crops. Yes, they take energy, water and other inputs to grow, but significantly less than other industrial crops. It takes approximately 100 gallons of water to produce a single cotton t-shirt and around one gallon of water to produce a hemp t-shirt. Hemp is also a natural carbon sink. It removes carbon dioxide from the air, and toxins from water & soil making it a potent tool in the fight against climate change. Long touted for its hardiness, fast time to harvest, and wide variety of commercial and industrial uses, hemp truly is the future.
🌋 What was particularly exciting about Iceland’s potential in the cannabis industry is the implications of their plentiful geothermal power. Using some of the cheapest renewable energy in Europe, Iceland can fulfill both domestic needs and put a sizeable dent Europe’s enormous cannabis supply deficit. The net result is Iceland can simultaneously augment its economy by monetizing this incredible energy resource while improving the health and wellness of its citizens.
💸 Common sense legislation is critical. There’s a saying where I’m from in Montana that you can shear a sheep over and over, but you can only skin it once. It makes little sense to usher in a more permissive and tolerant attitude toward cannabis, decriminalize possession, and then craft legislation that suffocates the legal industry’s ability to compete with the legacy market. Over-taxation and over-regulation of the legal market have historically and predictably caused the illicit market to explode. I explained that good legalization measures require both the cultural liberalism of progressives and the deregulatory zeal and economic sensibilities of fiscal conservatives.
The good news is the people of Iceland overwhelmingly support decriminalization and access to medicinal cannabis but they traditionally look to other Scandinavian nations’ policies before enacting their own. In this case, they need to lead the charge. The day after I spoke, the Prime Minister of Iceland dissolved its parliament and called for elections. It’s hard to predict how that will impact drug policy in Iceland, but what I know for sure is the legalization of cannabis is the lowest-hanging fruit lawmakers can use to improve life on that frigid island.
