islamabad, pakistan – When Aamir Dedi took his mother to India for treatment for Parkinson’s disease in 2014, local doctors recommended that he obtain cannabidiol (CBD) oil to manage his mother’s pain. I advised. This was the first time Dedi, a Karachi-based entrepreneur, learned about the medical uses of cannabis derivatives.
Upon returning to Pakistan, the businessman ordered a small amount of oil from the United States. It almost immediately calmed his mother’s nerves and helped reduce her shaking. Dedi has become a strong believer in his CBD benefits.
“After seeing the impact oil had on my mother’s health, this grew into a passion project for me,” the 49-year-old businessman told Al Jazeera.
His mother ultimately passed away in 2020, but Dedi said he has since seen others find relief with CBD oil. “Now I want to help local producers expand their production and spread its use,” he said.
Dedi is not alone in wanting to develop the domestic medical cannabis industry.
In February, Pakistan approved passing an ordinance creating the Cannabis Control and Regulation Authority (CCRA), an agency tasked with “regulating the cultivation, extraction, purification, manufacture, and sale of cannabis derivatives for medical and industrial purposes.”
The regulatory body is overseen by a 13-member board, which includes representatives from various government departments, intelligence agencies, and the private sector.
The establishment of the regulatory body, first proposed in 2020 during former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s tenure, signals Pakistan’s efforts to tap into the rapidly growing and lucrative global cannabis derivative industry.
The global cannabidiol market, which reached nearly $7 billion in 2022, is expected to exceed $30 billion by 2027, according to Ireland-based research organization Research and Markets.
Unlike tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive compound in the cannabis plant that gives users a high, CBD is non-psychoactive and is thought to have therapeutic effects. It is increasingly prescribed by doctors to treat anxiety, chronic and acute pain, and other medical conditions.
Syed Hussain Abidi, chairman of Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR), a government-owned research institute, and member of the CCRA board, said the creation of a regulatory authority was a requirement of United Nations law. . .
“United Nations law states that if a country wants to produce, process and sell cannabis-related products, it must have a federal agency to deal with the supply chain and ensure international compliance,” he told Al Jazeera. “There is,” he said.
CCRA’s regulatory framework specifies a maximum level of THC in cannabis derivatives of 0.3 percent to avoid medicinal abuse and for recreational use.
The ordinance stipulates stiff penalties for violations of the law, with fines ranging from 10 million Pakistani rupees ($35,000) to 200 million Pakistani rupees ($716,000), and surveillance and inspections This will be carried out in conjunction with the country’s anti-narcotics unit.
Abidi said the country could take advantage of herbal cultivation to generate income through exports, foreign investment and domestic sales, and shore up unstable foreign exchange reserves.
Pakistan’s laws have traditionally prohibited the cultivation of cannabis, but there are thousands of hectares of land in the northwest of the country, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where it has been cultivated for hundreds of years. In most cases, governments are choosing to look the other way rather than crack down.
But February’s ordinance aims to change that. However, it also talks about “regulating” the country’s cannabis cultivation areas and issuing cannabis cultivation licenses to farmers.
However, the new regulatory regime could give the government clearer powers to punish those who produce cannabis without a license. The National Cannabis Policy, which PCSIR created last year and served as the basis for the ordinance, states that the broad goal of the regulations is to curb “illegal and widespread cannabis cultivation.”
“Technically, growing is legal now that the ordinance was passed, but we’re still legal.” [the] It is a process of developing rules and procedures and waiting for registration with the authorities,” Abidi said.
The license will be issued for five years. The federal government plans to designate areas where marijuana can be legally grown.
dream
Abidi said that according to estimates, cannabis is grown on nearly 28,000 hectares (70,000 acres) of land, mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and parts of southwestern Balochistan province.
“We have a long tradition of growing cannabis,” he said. “We need to take advantage of this opportunity.”
Dedi, a Karachi-based entrepreneur, agrees. He works in partnership with farmers in both Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan to modernize their cultivation methods and improve the efficiency and quality of their products.
Cannabis in Pakistan is traditionally grown outdoors, relying on sunlight and with minimal use of pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals. This organic nature of Pakistani cannabis makes it different from the mass-produced cannabis in many other countries, but it also means that both the quality and quantity of production is less reliable.
“We have a huge potential in this area to provide health benefits through CBD. There is an opportunity to provide people with a cheaper medical alternative, which could help domestic users as well as users. can. [improve the] There is potential for export,” Dedi said.
“It could bring financial benefits to local producers.”
More than 1,500 km (930 miles) north of Karachi, the Tirah Valley is a vast mountainous region located between the tribal districts of Khyber and Orakzai in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. There, Suleman Shah, a 32-year-old mechanical engineer turned farmer, talks about the same dream as Dedi.
Shah has been running his family’s cannabis farm for the past eight years, with a staff of nearly 40 people planting nearly 200 acres (81 hectares) of cannabis. He said most farmers in the region are unaware of the medicinal properties of hemp and mainly grow it for recreational purposes using traditional methods.
Although growing cannabis is illegal, Shah said he had not received any reprimand from the government. Still, farmers like him face other challenges.
With cannabis grown in neighboring Afghanistan, government oversight is even weaker, which previously meant Pakistani cannabis faced stiff competition in the local recreational market. Borders between neighboring countries have long been quite porous.
“When Cannabis was grown in Afghanistan in the past, we often lost money because we could not recover our investment in growing the plants. [the] The Taliban issued a ban, but our business has improved considerably,” the farmer said, referring to the Afghan Taliban, who returned to power in Kabul in 2021.
Before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Shah said he was earning about 50,000 Pakistani rupees ($180) per acre, barely enough to cover production costs. “But the last two years have been better. If we take this year as an example, we were able to earn close to 500,000 rupees ($1,800) per acre,” he said.
“Farmers will be helped even more if the government introduces a regulatory framework,” Shah told Al Jazeera. “They provide expertise to farmers, help research and grow better quality products for people, and allow us to move beyond just recreational use.”
Globally, 1 liter (0.26 gallon) of CBD oil costs between $6,000 and $10,000, depending on quality. “This is a potential that we need to exploit by modernizing our cultivation and processing methods,” Shah said.
“I’m late to the party.”
But not everyone is convinced that Pakistan’s move to host cannabis production will give the country’s economy the boost it needs.
Former federal minister Fawad Chaudhry, who is credited with sparking the debate on promoting CBD and industrial hemp production in late 2020, has since said that the four-year delay in getting the plan off the ground means Pakistan is “too late to the party”. He said that it means “. ”.
“I recommend [in 2020] It was simply allocating space for factory growth, issuing international bids to investors, and getting investors to come here. But we squandered our potential and gave up our time advantage,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The world has moved on.”
Robin Roy Krigslund Hansen, CEO and co-founder of Swiss-based cannabis producer and global distributor Formula Switzerland, agreed.
Krigslund Hansen said that while he supported countries moving in the “right direction” by showing interest in medical uses for cannabis, there was a risk of over-saturation of the market.
“Germany recently legalized it. China is a major producer. Latin American countries are doing it as well. That means a lot of products come from different countries, but not everyone is a producer. and the seller, who will be the buyer?” the businessman asked.
He questioned whether Pakistan has the capacity to produce medical cannabis that meets global standards.
“If you want to sell medical-grade cannabis, it must be produced indoors to ensure consistency and uniform production. When growing indoors, lighting and The cost of electricity to maintain air conditioning is very high,” he said. “And this is going to cost a lot of money.”
But Abidi, the government official, remained optimistic when asked about these challenges.
He acknowledged that Pakistan needs more resources to “produce cannabis hygienically,” but his organization has been tasked by the government to develop processes to improve the quality of the product. He said he had received it.
“We have developed an end-to-end solution for extracting the highest quality CBD oil and are currently conducting research and extraction in Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar as pilot projects,” he said. “Within three years, we expect he could easily generate more than $1.5 billion in revenue between domestic sales and exports.”
Farmer Shah said that with the help of entrepreneurs like Dedi, he is also developing indigenous methods to improve production methods, adding that the organic, outdoor nature of Pakistan’s cannabis cultivation makes it unique. He claimed that.
“Rather than building greenhouses, we will use plastic sheets to cover the fields. We are developing ways to prevent cross-pollination,” he said.
Board member Abidi acknowledged that there is a stigma attached to the use of cannabis products in a conservative society like Pakistan, but the government hopes to see increased awareness of the benefits of CBD among young people. He said there was.
“The regulatory framework ensures that people only get prescribed medicines. [and] “It will crack down on the illegal sale and consumption of marijuana,” he said. “Clean products coming to retail will help reduce consumption. [the] It’s a black market, and only patients with a prescription can access it. ”