ATHENS—Christa Pappa quit her job as a research biologist last year to concentrate on her real career ambition: selling marijuana.
When Ms. Pappa and her husband opened a shop in Athens in 2002, offering clothes and other products made of hemp, they soon found themselves facing criminal charges for drug trafficking. They were acquitted after fighting the charges in Greek courts for nearly a decade.
“We wanted to keep the business open at any cost,” Ms. Pappa said. “It nearly destroyed us financially and psychologically, but we saw what was coming and wanted to be part of it.”
What is coming, in her view and that of more entrepreneurs and investors, is a boom in the growing and selling of legal cannabis in Europe. Greece could be one of the biggest winners.
Greece, which is slowly emerging from a decadelong financial crisis, just issued the first two licenses to private companies to grow cannabis and is set to grant 12 more this month.
Greece legalized cannabis for medical use in 2017 and lifted a ban on growing and producing it in 2018. Medical-cannabis use is currently allowed in nine countries in Europe, but more are considering following suit.
“It’s the European California,” said James Ickes, managing partner for Devcann, an Ohio-based company that is investing €12 million ($13.7 million) to cultivate, process and export medical and industrial cannabis in Greece.
Investment in the cannabis industry has taken off in North America thanks to the recent legalization of cannabis in Canada, with startups proliferating and shares of marijuana companies soaring. The boom is expected to spread to the U.S. after the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill in December that legalizes industrial hemp, and the loosening of marijuana restrictions in three more states during the midterm elections.
Southern European countries with plentiful sunshine and mild winters, such as Greece, Portugal and Cyprus, make an ideal place for cannabis cultivation and are set to become the center of the legal cannabis industry in Europe. Affordable labor and easy access to other European countries also make the location ideal. Investors and businesses in the sector estimate that Europe’s medical-cannabis market could exceed €50 billion in annual sales.
“Greece is a pioneer, as it’s one of the few countries that offers the opportunity to export, and the location is great: a pathway to Europe and the Middle East,” Mr. Ickes said.
The first licenses will facilitate an initial €185 million in investment, which could reach €1 billion in the next three years, Greek government officials said. Nikos Karanikas, who is coordinating the government’s cannabis-industry plan, said at least 10 more companies, mainly from Canada and Israel, are looking to invest between €10 million and €100 million each in the sector. They are all targeting exports to richer and larger markets, such as Germany.
Canadian company Tilray , which in 2016 became the first company to export cannabis products to Europe from North America, started growing its plants in central Portugal last year.
“We see increasing global demand,” said Tilray CEO Brendan Kennedy. “When I joined the sector in 2010, medical cannabis was legal in 15 countries. Today there are more than 35 countries and it’s very clear to me that there will be more than 60 in the next 24-36 months,” he said.
Cyprus is also planning to grant its first licenses soon.
“Perceptions are changing as the sector booms,” said Andreas Gennimatas, partner in two companies about to start doing business in Greece. “It’s like the internet in the late ’90s.”
Much of Greek society is traditionally conservative and suspicious of cannabis.
Ms. Pappa and her husband said they met with widespread disapproval for many years. Soon after their shop opened, police raided it and seized evidence, including a pair of boxer shorts that were for sale, to test for illegal drugs. Even though the clothes were made of industrial hemp rather than marijuana containing the psychoactive chemical THC, she was charged with drug trafficking. Many of the couple’s friends and relatives turned their backs on them, they said. Her father-in-law sold his house to help them.
Today, however, Greece is in dire need of investment to help it recover from its deep economic woes, and criticism of the new wave of cannabis investment has been muted.
“The financial recession has made the region move in this direction,” said Argyris Mountzouris, Ms. Pappa’s husband. “We are a society in crisis looking for new investment models both for our agriculture and for our industries—and this plant can offer both.”
For now, no European countries plan to legalize the production of cannabis for recreational purposes. Investors say that they focusing on medical cannabis for the moment, but that recreational cannabis could follow if negative perceptions of the plant subside. Legalization for adult use could more than double European investments in the sector, investors estimate.
Odysseas, Ms. Pappa’s and Mr. Mountzouris’s 18-year-old cat, is one of Greece’s first patients taking medical cannabis. He suffers from arthritis and other age-related pains. A daily dose of cannabis oil in his food makes him more energetic and playful, the couple said. They hope other Greeks will enjoy similar benefits soon.
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