The Global Cannabis Regulatory Summit (GCRS) has published a 100-page white paper that diagnoses a fragmented global regulatory landscape and sets out a working architecture to address it. The legal framework for medical cannabis has existed for more than 60 years. A coherent regulatory framework has not.
The Summit brings together regulators, policymakers, healthcare professionals, patient groups and industry.
Co-published by Artemis Growth Partners and Prohibition Partners, the document captures the central themes, workshop findings and recommendations that emerged from this year’s London Summit.
Participants from nearly 30 countries and 20 regulatory jurisdictions came together to address a shared challenge: despite operating under the same UN drug control conventions, countries have developed very different approaches to regulating cannabis medicines, a fragmentation that affects regulators, healthcare providers and patients alike.
No single jurisdiction possesses all the answers, the paper argues. Continued progress will require cooperation across governments, international institutions, healthcare systems, scientific communities, patient organisations and a responsible industry.
A shared framework
Three interconnected pillars emerged from discussions at the Summit: agreed technical standards, market responsibility, and a pathway toward greater global regulatory alignment for cannabis medicines.
Together, they provide a framework for addressing the fragmentation, inconsistency and accountability challenges that continue to shape global cannabis markets.
Regulatory frameworks set the legal and policy environment; standards turn regulatory objectives into practical expectations; and responsibility mechanisms help ensure market participants protect patients, consumers and the integrity of the system. None of the three can achieve its objectives in isolation.
Three key initiatives
GCRS 2026 highlighted three initiatives, one for each pillar, that are helping to build the infrastructure necessary for trusted, accountable and internationally coordinated cannabis markets.
The Cannabis Medicines Regulatory Accord (CMRA), which advances the regulatory alignment pillar, is an independent, time-limited NGO chaired by former UN drug-control official Pavel Pachta. It is designed as neutral, technical infrastructure, helping governments interpret and implement UN drug-control conventions consistently.
As Oppenhoff & Partner attorney Franziska Katterbach and Woodbridge Research consultant Martin Woodbridge put it, its key proposition is simple: “The world does not need new treaties. It needs alignment. The legal structure is there. The flexibility is there. The need is clear.”
The S3 Collective, founded by ASTM International D37 committee chair David Vaillencourt, advances the standards pillar. Already the only body accepted into the US Food and Drug Administration’s Network of Experts programme for cannabis, S3 commissions and conducts the research that provides the evidentiary foundation for new standards.
Two ASTM D37 standards are in use: D8197 on water activity in cannabis flower, now part of US national weights-and-measures law, and D8441, the intoxicating cannabinoid product symbol, used in nine US states.
The Global Cannabis Responsibility Alliance (GCRA), which advances the market responsibility pillar, is anchored by Belgium- and US-based Potash Global Strategy, whose principals bring decades of hands-on experience building self-regulatory organisations and co-regulatory frameworks in other highly regulated sectors.
It draws on those lessons to help industry identify and address regulatory gaps and build trust among regulators, patients and the public.
Its first year is a lean proof of concept delivering practical tools such as a responsibility standards framework and a standardised label and health statement.
The paper includes funding proposals for each initiative, inviting governments, industry and philanthropic partners to support the work.
Medical cannabis as a Schedule III substance
Days after the summit closed, the US Department of Justice moved state-licensed medical cannabis to Schedule III, prompting a dedicated chapter on what that means.
Vicente LLP partner Shawn Hauser and the firm’s Director of Economics and Research Andrew Livingston, with a European perspective from Katterbach, argue that the DOJ Final Order is ‘the most consequential federal cannabis policy shift since the drug was placed in Schedule I in 1970’.
If Section 280E relief is extended to all cannabis businesses, independent economic analysis projects roughly 55,000 new jobs, US$2.2b in eliminated excess federal taxes and US$5.6b in new economic activity by 2030.
Uplisting on major US exchanges has already become more plausible for compliant medical operators, while a theoretical DEA-registered export pathway now exists under the Single Convention framework, though US exporters would still need to satisfy EU-GMP standards and destination-country marketing authorisations before shipping to Europe.
For Europe, Schedule III does not mean US products will enter Europe overnight, Katterbach argues. European pharmaceutical compliance standards are too high for most US operators to clear quickly.
However, rescheduling does legitimise the pharmaceuticalisation of cannabis globally and position Germany, in particular, as a beneficiary of increased US institutional investment and clinical partnership.
London to Zurich
The rest of the paper returns to London, capturing the breadth of the Summit’s discussions, including a closed-door session for regulators, a review of a year of global policy evolution, and chapters on advancing cannabis medicines, designing stable regulatory systems, and medical cannabis and international trade policy.
The questions raised in London about how cannabis markets work in practice will carry into Zurich, where the next GCRS takes place from 5 to 7 April 2027 under the theme ‘Markets in Practice’.
As the paper notes, “The future of medical cannabis will be shaped less by ideology and increasingly by evidence, healthcare outcomes, regulatory sophistication, and international collaboration.”
