Many for-profit cannabis companies from the Global North are aggressively competing to capture the licit spaces now rapidly opening in the multi-billion-dollar global cannabis market. This threatens to push small-scale and marginalized traditional farmers from many countries in the Global South out of the emerging legal market. It is argued here by Martin Jelsma, Sylvia Kay and David Bewley-Taylor that there should be no reason why, using carefully designed regulatory frameworks, small-scale farmers cannot work in mutually beneficial partnership with or alongside large companies. This might be achieved through a fair(er) trade cannabis model built around a rights-based, inclusive and environmentally sustainable approach to market engagement.
Mindful of the intricate, cross-cutting and complex nature of the commercial and legal environment, Fair(er) Trade Options for the Cannabis Market proposes a set of interconnecting frameworks through which to better understand the issue and concludes with a set of guiding principles upon which a fair(er) trade cannabis model might be built.