How to Attack Greece’s Persistent Unemployment? Grow Some Weed – This is the title of a Bloomberg report about the perspectives of growing medical marijuana in Greece and how to tackle the problem of unemployment that has been over 20% in the last five years..
The Greek economy has been hammered by 10 years of financial crisis, with unemployment topping 20 percent every year since 2012. Now, the government thinks pot growers can help.
A project to cultivate, process and export medical marijuana in Veroia, in the fertile north of the country, shows how Greece sees cannabis as a possible growth industry for the country, which has a warm, dry climate similar to California. New legislation could make the plan a reality as soon as next summer.
Alexis Tsipras’s left-wing Syriza government, an enthusiastic backer of projects like Veroia, is set to propose legislation to allow pot cultivation projects to go forward as soon as the end of this month. The bill will be posted on the government’s website to allow the public to weigh in on legalizing cultivation and export of medical marijuana.
“There’s significant interest by the investor community to exploit the possibilities of the new legal framework for medicinal cannabis in Greece,” Agriculture Minister Evangelos Apostolou said in an interview. The government is willing to assist any investment project that could help boost the economy, the minister said.
In addition to persistently high unemployment, the economic crisis has also pummeled wages in Greece. Average monthly salaries, at just 586 euros, are among the lowest in the European Union, so any initiative promising higher-wage jobs is certain to resonate with the government. Top earners among employees in the legal cannabis industry can bring home $80,000-$100,000 a year, according to Blady.
The Veroia project’s backers say the positive effect on employment and wages provides a buffer against possible future changes in government. “Even when power does change and the political landscape shifts, it’s pretty hard to roll back on something that the general population sees as a benefit,” Blady said. Bloomberg
Read also: Joint Ministerial decision opens way for cultivation of medical marijuana in Greece
I hope the legislation passes all the hurdles.
If the Greeks play their cards right and get onto this soon, they could become world leaders in the production of cannabis – both medical and, when legislation allows, recreational. The global market is potentially huge, and if they’re clever about it, they can tap into that market. If Greece legalised (not ‘decriminalised’) recreational marijuana, you can be sure that other countries would follow by example, particularly when they think about the potential tax take. And in doing so, they create a market for Greece to supply. A decade or so of that, and Greece could tell the Troika to stick its austerity where the sun don’t shine.
Grow weed is such a great help for country that many are unemployed. Let’s be wiser and productive.