Cannabis as a Resource

Cannabis – Uses

 

Cannabis is an extremely versatile raw material and is used in a wide variety of industrial areas:

 

 

Source: https://newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/some-remarkable-potential-markets-for-hemp/

 

 

In the European market, the categories with the largest market shares are industrial applications and the use of products containing CBD (i.e. products made from cannabis with a high content of the cannabinoid cannabidiol for short, CBD):

 

 

 

Source: https://newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/about-importing-cbd-to-europe/

 

 

Plant-based Foods

 

Another promising area of application for hemp is in the trend area of plant-based foods, as a high-quality protein source. Hemp proteins are particularly well tolerated and, unlike soy proteins, provide all of the essential amino acids that the body needs, as well as valuable omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

 

 

Hemp as a renewable raw material

 

The other major area of application, besides food & drugs, is its use as a (fast growing) renewable raw material. Hemp binds 3.5 - 4.5 times more CO2 than fir forest. And hemp is ideal as an ecological and biodegradable substitute for petroleum-based products such as plastics.

 

The plastic pollution of our environment has meanwhile expanded into a huge ecological catastrophe. Every month we consume microplastics the size of a credit card through water and food. If the majority of the current plastic production for (disposable) packaging and plastic bottles were to be replaced with hemp, this would not only massively improve the CO2 balance (since it is a renewable raw material) but also make an enormous contribution to reducing plastic pollution of our environment (since it is biodegradable) .

 

Furthermore, hemp is also suitable as a substitute for cotton in textile production, as a substitute for wood in paper production, as a substitute for artificial products in the construction industry as thermal insulation, or as biomass for the production of fuels (for example from hemp waste in the production of others products).

 

Hemp is therefore still an underestimated raw material and offers a great opportunity for the Swiss agricultural sector in particular.

 

In the case of legalization, it would make sense to tax THC-containing products analogous to the tobacco tax – which in turn offers a possibility for long-term restructuring of the social security systems.