AN ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
It’s likely the country will rely on imported cannabis as there is no domestic cultivation system currently in place. This will probably come from nations that already have an established infrastructure and experience in cannabis production. The obvious example if Canada that has already gained a foothold on Germany’s nascent medical cannabis market.
Nevertheless, the impact medical cannabis could have on Greece’s struggling economy could be substantial. In Canada, for example, Deloitte estimated that a legal cannabis market could be worth $23 billion a year (just over 1.5% of their annual GDP in 2016), which is more than their beer, wine and spirits sales combined. If Greece were to benefit from medical cannabis to this degree, it could mean an injection of up to €3 billion into the economy, which would certainly set a precedent to the remaining European nations who are yet to stake their place in Europe’s fastest-growing marketplace.
