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While the global cannabis industry continues to move forward, the path of progress is not always straightforward. The de facto free-for-all adult-use legalisation policies in Thailand and South Africa have created huge domestic industries, but ones that are hard to control, or even tax. While most countries open up slowly, at times over-bureaucratising the industry, there are drawbacks to the other side of the coin, also. Finding the right balance for a legitimate, standardised, quality-controlled, fully-licensed industry is a difficult endeavour, but it is essential in order to create a sustainable cannabis access framework that is beneficial to society. As different countries learn from the mistakes and successes elsewhere, certain patterns of development are beginning to emerge, in both adult-use and medical cannabis frameworks, globally. With political situations in a state of flux across many countries, the immediate future for the global cannabis industry is not clear. There is significant potential for the global industry yet to be realised, however, and given the constant direction of progress over the past number of years, this potential seems sure to be realised eventually, by one path or another.
