On the eve of the largest event in the UK cannabis calendar – Product Earth Expo, we invited Stuart Harper and the board of the United Kingdom Cannabis Social Clubs to share their account of the organisations history, and their grassroots activism.

When I tell people about the UK’s cannabis social clubs, I am often, if not always, met with the same reply:

‘We have cannabis clubs in the UK?’

The Times has boldly gone where few newspapers - and very, very few politicians - have ever dared to go before by declaring itself in favour of legalising drugs in Britain.

In a leading article, “Breaking Good”, the paper has supported a call on the government by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) to decriminalise both the possession and use of all illegal drugs.

Accepting that it “is radical advice”, the Times thought it “sound” and urged ministers to “give it serious consideration”.

A cannabis producing and processing company based in California has been selling and shipping a range of their products to UK customers. They also ship to other countries where the import and export of the cannabis flower is illegal, such as Brazil, Spain and Germany. This is the first time a cannabis-derived product has been shipped on an international scale, and the products have been reaching UK customers with no problem – but before you start to fret, everything is completely legal.

Medical marijuana generated more than $4.2 billion in revenue in the U.S. in 2015, according to ArcView Market Research. And they forecast it will surpass $22 billion by 2020, as regulations continue to loosen and patient access increases.

The marijuana industry is blossoming, and 2016 could wind up being its best year yet in a number of ways.

Marijuana keeps expanding despite federal inaction

Since California first approved Proposition 215 in 1996 to provide certain patients with medical marijuana on the basis of compassionate use, the marijuana industry has been trudging forward. Today, two dozen states have approved medical marijuana, while another four, along with Washington, D.C., have legalized the use of marijuana for recreational purposes.

Occasionally you hear that “medical cannabis is legal in the UK” when at international cannabis conferences. This is almost an “in black and white” or “down on paper” kind of “medical cannabis” whereby technically there is because there is a pharmaceutical company licenced to produce and research it. They have gone on to make medicines from this research which are very limited in their application to illnesses that have been traditionally treated by cannabis. But for Governments it is an acceptable starting place.

I can’t even count how many times I have been told “I would love to work in the legal cannabis industry” usually followed by “when it happens”.

Well, today is your lucky day…if you fit these requirements.

Cannabis users seeking treatment often have an expertise about the drug which is leaving those trying to help them lagging behind, a conference has been told.

A group of national experts was told about the "inverted expertise" seen in users at a meeting at York University to exchange ideas on effective treatment.

The conference was told that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people seeking treatment, with research showing there has been a 64% increase between 2005 and 2015 in England.

And cannabis has now overtaken heroin as the drug most likely to prompt calls for help.

But the increase in requests for treatment contrasts with the steady decline in the population's use of the drug, delegates were told.

“I Want to Take You Higher.”

Pharmaceutical companies developing cannabis-based drugs just might be serenading investors with this 1969 hit single by the group Sly and the Family Stone.

But a word of caution to those banking on marijuana drugs to be the blockbusters that send share prices zooming. You could see your investment “go to pot.”

Could the UK follow Canada’s lead and begin steps to legalise cannabis? According to bookmakers, the chance of decriminalising marijuana in the next ten years looks likely.

Ladbrokes are offering of odds of 3/1 that cannabis will become “legalised and regulated in the UK by 2026”.

The drug was de-classified to a Class C drug in 2004, but was re-classified to a Class B drug again in 2009.

Campaigners claim legalising cannabis would save the Treasury millions. Here’s what we know about Cannabis in numbers:

Cannabis usage

2.2 million

The number of people aged 16-59 who are thought to have used cannabis in the UK in 2014.

10 million

The number of smokers in the UK in 2014

Critics are calling "reefer madness" on a new study from Australia claiming smoking pot will give your kids cancer. 

Cannabis has been shown in cell, animal and limited human trials to prevent, halt or kill cancer, researchers note. Australia is getting world-famous for their reefer-madness research, this time for equating pot to the notorious birth defect-causing chemical thalidomide. 

On Tuesday, Associate Professor Stuart Reece and Professor Gary Hulse at The University of Western Australia released a paper called “Chromothripsis and epigenomics complete causality criteria for cannabis- and addiction-connected carcinogenicity, congenital toxicity and heritable genotoxicity”, published July 2016 in the journal "Mutation Research".