Countess fighting for marijuana for medical purposes in Europe

Canopy Growth Corp, the world's largest cannabis producer wants to boost the market for medical marijuana Europe. To lead the battle, he turned to an English countess who has already pierced a hole in his head to get high.

In a nicknamed country house "Brainblood Room", where he experimented hallucinogenic drugs, Amanda Feilding evokes the image of the eccentric English aristocracy. However, the countess of Wemyss and March This is not a nostalgic hippie of the acidic journeys of the 1960s: is one of the leading advocates of the use of psychedelic drugs in medicine, he studies its effects on consciousness and advises governments on policies.

Treatments derived from cannabis have already been adopted for diseases such as epilepsy and Canopy, based in Canada, has recruited Feilding into a $ 9.6 million research company to study cancer pain and opioid addiction. The producer is trying to outperform its competitors, including Aurora Cannabis Inc. and Tilray Inc., in the European market for medical marijuana, which the Prohibition Partners badyst project will reach $ 65 billion by 2028.

"Its ability to scientifically badyze what would otherwise be considered a controversial therapy makes it a very good partner."ensures Mark Ware, medical director of Canopy. "She is brave enough to enter relatively unexplored waters with us, but scientific enough to provide truly reliable information."

Canopy has big plans for EuropeOnly the United Kingdom will achieve annual legal marijuana sales of about 800 million US dollars in five years, according to its founder, Bruce Linton, on par with current Canadian levels. The producer plans to spend US $ 115 million for new installations in Italy, Greece or Spain, as well as an almost completed site in Denmark, which will produce up to 200 kilos per week by the end of this year .

Europe lagging behind the United States and Canada in legalizing marijuana. Many countries continue to threaten prison sentences for possession for personal and recreational purposes. However, more than 10 countries now allow medical uses and 15 others permit medical marijuana in some cases, such as multiple sclerosis, when patients have exhausted all possibilities.

"Medical cannabis reform now has an unstoppable global impulse"Feilding said during an interview in his hotel, surrounded by miniature Buddhas, candles and tapestries from South Asia, inspired by his godfather, who had left Britain to live as a monk Buddhist in Sri Lanka. "He will soon conquer Europe."

Canopy expects to increase sales, estimated at US $ 182 million this year, by encouraging European regulators to license more marijuana-based health products and persuading doctors to prescribe them.

A joint venture with the Beckley Foundationfrom Feilding, plans to badyze the chemical content of several strains used in conditions such as pain, dependence and anxiety; Two upcoming trials on pain and addiction will involve approximately 250 patients. The first results are expected by 2020. The partners are also creating a company, Spectrum Biomedical UK, which will sell marijuana products for medical use, such as oils and soft capsules in Great Britain.

Feilding, 76 years old was fascinated by the cognitive effects of marijuana in the late 1960swhen he smoked his first cigarette while listening to Ray Charles's music. In 1996, he created the Foundation for Awareness, which he later called Beckley Foundation, with the goal of investigating psychedelic drugs. It was a controversial idea at that time.

"For a long time, you could not even talk about these compounds in a positive way"said Feilding in an interview at his country house. "It was just not acceptable".

Fortunately for Feilding, she had the necessary intimacy to experiment at Beckley Hall, the official name of her property, surrounded by three pits at the end of a winding road.

In addition to cannabis, Feilding has tried the trepanado, a practice in which a hole is pierced in the skull to expose the dura, the protective sheath of the brain.. This is the oldest surgical procedure for which archaeologists have found evidence, used in some cultures to treat mental illnesses. In the 1960s, enthusiasts said that trepanation induces cerebral blood flow and a higher and calmer state of consciousness.

In 1970, the countess was filmed doing the operation herself with an exercise at the dentist before wrapping her head in a sling, eating a steak to replace the iron lost blood and go to a party. In 1979 and 1983, he unsuccessfully presented himself to Parliament, as part of a campaign led by the National Health Service of the United Kingdom to offer trepanation to patients.

Feilding advocated a political reform of the global war on drugs, which began in 1971 under the chairmanship of Richard Nixon in the United States. Over the next few decades, he formed a network of scientists, politicians, and drug policy badysts to try to effect change.

In 2011, he wrote an open letter to governments around the world recommending the revision of the UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 so that countries can explore policies that meet their national needs.

Since then, he has advised the United Nations and governments, while working with researchers from the Imperial College of London, Johns Hopkins University and other schools in some forty scientific publications. , one of which was the first study on the impact of LSD. in the connectivity of the brain. While advising the Jamaican government on the regulation of the cannabis industry in the country, he began meeting Canopy officials; After 18 months of discussions, the joint venture was born.

For Feilding's son, Cosmo Feilding-Mellen, he is very different from his childhood, when his mother's opinions were considered extravagant.

"People used to call my mother crazy," says Feilding-Mellen, 34, the general manager of the collaboration, "and now she sees her as a visionary."

-With the help of Samuel Dodge and Kristine Owram