According to a representative of the Irish Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), in 2019 licenses were issued for growing hemp in areas with a total area of ​​373 hectares.

This data was provided by Emer O'Neill, a cosmetic product manager at HPRA, during her speech at a cannabis conference at the Teagasc Food Center in Dublin on Thursday, June 20.

She outlined a number of noteworthy statistics, including the fact that 60 licenses were issued this year, while 24 licenses were issued for the whole of 2018, 16 licenses were issued in 2017, and only 7 in 2016. permissions.

O'Neill also outlined various conditions and options related to the application process. The purpose of the conference was to discuss future possibilities for further growing cannabis in Ireland and how this process could be simplified.

However, the need for a licensing process was called into question by another speaker, CEO of Elixinol Global hemp producer Paul Benheim, who cited the example of Canada, where the licensing process was terminated in favor of a simplified process that determines how much TGC hemp contains in a particular manufacturer.

Cannabis obtained from the cannabis plant, which contains the toxicant tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), but very little is found in cultivated hemp THC.