CANNABIS

CONTROLLED PRODUCTION COULD EARN TURKEY $100B

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently announced that 19 Turkish cities have been authorized for cannabis seeding, which has been limited since the 1990s.

The Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (MUSIAD) President Abdurrahman Kaan welcomed the announcement, noting that it is crucial to start the controlled production of cannabis which is very important for industrial production in terms of the production of raw material for a variety of industries.

“There was a plan to begin farming cannabis, which is among prohibited agricultural products in our country according to the narcotic substances law, in a controlled way with a regulation in 2016. However, a comprehensive plan has not been established while the production stage has not yet been initiated,” he said in a press release on January 25.

“The species of cannabis, which is known throughout history in Anatolia, stands out with its quality and ease of production compared to varieties produced in Europe and other regions. Due to this advantage, we must register the cannabis plant, which is grown in our land with native seeds, as Turkish Cannabis.”

Turkey could earn $100 billion from controlled cannabis production through 2030, said the head of the Cannabis Institute of the Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies (ASAM) on January 24.

The country could use the cannabis plant to produce textile materials, paper, biodiesel, electricity (with biomass), biodegradable polymers, and all types of plastics, Erdem Ulas told Anadolu Agency. He said cannabis is also used in the medical industry - such as cancer treatment - and the Turkish economy could benefit from this.

“Extrapolating from the cannabis leaf’s price of 15 million euros ($17 million) per tonne, we could earn 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) by exporting 100 tonnes of [cannabis] oil,” he said.

Mentioning rising paper prices in Turkey, Ulas stressed that the country could produce paper from cannabis rather than trees. “Cannabis has 85 types of cellulose and it can be recycled eight times,” he said. He also said a number of countries worldwide already produce cannabis, including France, the Netherlands, Canada, and the U.S. “The U.S. expects $71 billion in income from cannabis by 2025,” he added. Cannabis is used in several industrial fields such as automotive, wood, construction, textiles, cosmetics, biodiesel, food, and paper.