Marijuana Business Magazine November December 2018

HEMP & CBD INDUSTRY FACTBOOK F our-hundred years ago, the British needed tons of hemp to make the sails, ropes and riggings needed to maintain their global shipping empire. The 20th century saw the weakened hemp industry all but disappear, as governments around the world banned production because one variant of the plant – marijuana – produces the intoxicating chemical THC. Fast-forward to today: The hemp industry is undergoing a rebirth, particularly in the United States. U.S. hemp-derived CBD retail sales are projected to keep steady market growth through 2022, easily breaking $1 billion by 2020. Why the rebound in the United States and elsewhere? The same governments that banned hemp production because of its conflation with marijuana are reopening business opportunities, and private entrepreneurs are investing huge sums in developing the hemp market. But hemp’s revival is happening largely in the dark. Some countries don’t track how much is being grown, and others have legal barriers that prevent hemp from getting the kind of data collection seen with other crops. In the United States, the Department of Agriculture currently considers hemp legal only if grown as part of a state-backed pilot project. Because it is monitored by the states rather than at the federal level, no national records are kept on the nascent industry – not even how much hemp is growing and what farmers are doing with it. And each state keeps its own wildly varying data on how their hemp experiments are going. The modern hemp industry has largely been reliant on optimistic projections from activists who want to see hemp’s revival flourish, rather than evidence-based data points about the market. The 2018 Hemp & CBD Industry Factbook seeks to over- come these challenges, setting aside rosy projections with no explanation to provide a fact-based overview of the industry, based on exclusive financial and operational data shared by people working in the hemp industry. The following excerpt from the 2018 Hemp & CBD Indus- try Factbook provides critical information businesses need to chart their strategic courses in this evolving market. It represents the debut of this annual publication. To access the entire Factbook, visit mjbizfactbook.com/hemp . Hemp lndustry to Break $1 Billion Sales Barrier by 2020 New Factbook offers state-by-state cultivation data and US sales projections that track the growth of hemp, CBD By Kristen Nichols The definitive benchmark analysis of Hemp and CBD markets in the United States Annual Hemp & CBD Industry 2018 | 1st Edition FACTBOOK $199 00 38 • Marijuana Business Magazine • November/December 2018