Tory chief ’s cousin buys 4,000 acres of cannabis
Don’t worry, Theresa, it’s all perfectly legal
HE HAS described smoking marijuana as a ‘ waste of money’. So Tory Party Deputy Chairman James Cleverly could be forgiven for having doubts about his cousin’s new business venture – importing cannabis to Britain.
Chris Cleverly is executive chairman of little-known London-based agriculture firm Block Commodities, which on Wednesday became one of the few British companies to obtain a licence to grow the controversial plant.
Block Commodities, which counts former Tory MP Mark Simmonds as a director, wants to import the cannabis from Sierra Leone, where Chris and James’s mothers are from, to Europe and the UK so it can be used in cannabis-based medicines. Chris and James’s British fathers are brothers and their mothers are best friends.
It is understood that any cannabis the company grows and imports will be only for medicinal products. ucts.
Last year, products using cannabidiol, also known as CBD, the cannabis extract used for treatments, became available on the NHS as Britain joined other European countries in relaxing rules on such medicines. Patients can get a prescription through the NHS to treat epilepsy or nausea a caused by chemotherapy, but t only if other treatments have e not worked.
Cannabis-based medicines are e legal in 22 European countries s and their increasing availability in North America has spawned a rush by businesses to cash in on n the fledgling industry.
Block Commodities has referred ed to itself as a ‘pot stock’ because its ts shares are listed on the NEX EX Exchange, an obscure London on stock exchange. The average ge investor can buy and sell Block Commodities shares, but it is not a very liquid market, meaning it can be hard to sell them.
The company, which specialises in agriculture in Africa, has decided to focus on the cannabis market and has agreed to pay £4 million in shares to buy Greenbelt Company.
Last year Greenbelt was given the go-ahead by the Sierra Leone government to grow, process and export cannabis on 4,000 acres of farmland.
Block Commodities said that it wanted to ‘fast-track and streamline operations’ as soon as the deal was completed.
Chris Cleverly, who counts Savile Row tailor Ozwald Boateng as a friend, told The Mail on Sunday that James had had no involvement in the company and that he had been ‘very busy with Brexit’.
He added: ‘The all-party [parliamentary] group on drugs has been very, very positive on this area.
‘The movement across Europe is very much pro moving towards legalising medicinal cannabis, so we can see where it’s going to go. The opioid crisis has medical professionals scrambling for alternatives. An alternative is medical cannabis. Medical cannabis has a much greater functionality than just pain relief and doctors are testing out its remedial effects on melanomas and its success with multiple sclerosis and epilepsy have been noted.’
Asked whether he had ever smoked cannabis, he replied: ‘Let’s just say I’ve lived a full life.’
When James Cleverly, 49, became an MP in 2015, he admitted to having ‘ dabbled’ with marijuana at university. The Tory MP f or Braintree said: ‘I don’t recommend it, it’s a waste of money, waste of time and just not very good for your future prospects.’
He became Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party last year.
Block Commodities recently changed its name from African Potash, a fertiliser company, to focus on blockchain, the digital ledger that records all transactions.
Blockchain has been hailed as a way of improving complex supply chain issues in industries such as farming. Lord Hain, the Labour peer, stepped down from the board of African Potash in 2017.
Like James, Chris Cleverly grew up in Essex. He spent a short time as a dancer in Turkey before training as a barrister.
At the age of 28, he became the youngest barrister to head his own chambers in more than a century before turning to business.
James Cleverly declined to comment last night.