What happened in 2025

Industry, events and visibility

We held the first of many highly attended Industry Networking Events in London, with more already scheduled for London and further afield. Our first Medical Mixer takes place on 22 January, with the full announcement going out in the first week back.

We established open-to-all Strategic Sector Committees, bringing specialists together across Medical Cannabis, Industrial Hemp, CBD and Supplements, Animals and Wellbeing, Nootropics, and Fungi. These committees are now central to how we shape policy, evidence and industry collaboration.

Throughout the year we attended, and often spoke at, a significant number of industry events and exhibitions including NFX, The Pharmacy Show, Cannabis Health Symposium, The Whitelabel Show, ICBC Berlin, the EUMCA Dinner, The Cannabis Awards, Cannabis Europa, Verdant Strategies and Talman House Group.

The CTA was present at the very first APPG for Industrial Hemp, Carbon Credits and Rural Development at Westminster, and at two subsequent meetings since.

International credibility and government engagement

We significantly increased our international credibility by organising intra-government briefings and visits for international hemp and cannabis companies from North Africa, the Middle East and Thailand. We even received a special invitation to the New Zealand Embassy.

In just eight weeks, the CTA responded to five full government consultations across the UK and EU, including the FSA CBD Consultation, the Home Office, ACMD, VMD, MHRA and the European Commission on Hemp and CBD. Large whiskies were required.

Alongside this, we ran our own industry consultations, including the Novel Foods Impact Survey and the CBD Users Survey.

Regulatory frameworks and policy impact

The CTA created a Framework for CBD for the FSA, including an Article 4 covering traditionally processed and ingested full-plant CBD and hemp seed oil in the UK and EU. This opens a pathway to categorise certain hemp-derived products as agricultural derivatives, aligning the UK with recent EU and US developments and removing these products from the Novel Foods process. Regulation would instead sit with DEFRA for licensing.

We also supported the European Court of Justice call for evidence on the use of leaf and flower in industrial hemp products, and pushed for harmonisation of UK and EU hemp thresholds at 0.3% THC in both cultivation and finished products.

Medical cannabis focus

Medical cannabis demanded a significant share of our attention this year. We worked with the Royal College of Physicians to support the recruitment of more prescribers, with particular thanks to CTA Special Adviser Professor Mike Barnes. We focused heavily on harm reduction, stigma affecting patients, education for enforcement officers, employers and councils, and on improving patient access.

Work was undertaken to rewrite the RCP Guidelines with Professor Barnes, while outdated and misleading NHS patient information was robustly challenged. Freedom of Information requests are now in play.

We worked across the full ecosystem: UK and international growers, pharmacies and polypharmacies, prescribing doctors, specialist consultants, hospitals, institutions and hospices, supply platforms, logistics providers, insurers, banks, universities and R&D centres, alongside every relevant regulator. The aim has always been clear: better treatment for patients using CBPMs and, ultimately, opening the door to NHS prescribing. Our energetic Medical Cannabis Strategic Sector meetings have been a key driver of this progress.

We also engaged directly with the MHRA Board to propose a new patient trial pathway for medical cannabis as a plant-based medicine, grounded in risk versus benefit for patients with complex conditions.

Relentless advocacy and communications

The CTA wrote a lot of letters. On average, two a week, to departments, regulators and specialists across government. The Home Office received particularly frequent correspondence, all the way up to Cabinet level, on behalf of our medical cannabis members. No UK government department has escaped scrutiny.

FSA correspondence alone filled more than two filing boxes.

We also produced a vast volume of content. Over 100 articles were written, largely thanks to Sian Phillips, alongside the creation of strong media partnerships benefiting both members and the CTA. We were quoted regularly across national media, including The Sunday Times, The Mail on Sunday and The i.

With Sian Phillips taking the lead, the CTA played a central role in November’s Cannabis Awareness Month, shining a much-needed spotlight on patients and the CBPM sector.

We expanded our podcasts and blogs to ensure members and the wider industry stayed informed, and as a result our website traffic and membership numbers are now growing steadily.

Recognition

The year ended on a high when the CTA received a Green Shield Award from Global Cannabinoid Solutions.

The citation read, in part:

“For nearly a decade, the Cannabis Trades Association has been one of the most stable, consistent and supportive forces in the UK cannabis landscape. Long before public awareness expanded, before medical cannabis legislation changed and before the CBD market developed, the CTA was already bringing industry actors together, guiding emerging businesses and helping shape conversations that would later define the sector.

As the association approaches its ten-year anniversary, Global Cannabinoid Solutions is proud to recognise the CTA, and especially its leadership team, Marika Graham-Woods and Sian Phillips, as Green Shield Award recipients. This recognition reflects their long-standing service, advocacy and continued commitment to responsible, fair and community-focused industry development.”

I confess, I cried.

Looking ahead

New year. New budgets.

It is time your company joined the CTA

Together, we are more influential with governments and regulators, and a stronger positive force for cannabinoid industries across the UK, the EU and around the world.

Have a bountiful 2026

Marika Graham-Woods
Executive Director & Chair