Berlin, 2020-12-18: The German Cannabis Business Association „Cannabiswirtschaft e.V. (BvCW)“ recently established a scientific advisory board for the cannabis industry in its first appointment round. The goal of the advisory board is to provide expert support for the work of the industry association. Overall, the BvCW aims to broaden knowledge about cannabis in Germany on a scientific basis, establish sensibly regulated market conditions, and promote collaboration between politics, science, business, and society.

The first members of the Cannabis Industry Scientific Advisory Board:

Prof. Dr. phil. habil. Gundula Barsch holds a PhD in Sociology, habilitated in Social Pedagogy, and has been employed since 1999 in the field of “Drugs and Social Work” at HS Merseburg. She currently works on the research project “BioenergiePlus” at Hochschule Merseburg, focusing on the possibilities of cannabis in relation to the lignite phase-out. Since 2016, she has also been involved in an ongoing study on self-initiated cannabis treatments.

Apl. Prof. Dr. Simone Graeff-Hönniger received her PhD in Agricultural Sciences in 2000 from the Institute of Plant Nutrition at Justus Liebig University Giessen. She habilitated in 2006 at the University of Hohenheim in the field of Crop Science and Modeling. Her selected research projects on hemp, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, investigate, for example, the development of cultivation and production methods for hemp plant extracts, as well as targeted delivery systems for anti-inflammatory agents focusing on joint diseases, and the development of cannabis genetics with indoor cultivation systems and a cannabis nanoformulation. Since April 2019, she has been the head of the German-Canadian ZIM research network “Cannabis-Net,” conducting research along the value chain of medical cannabis. She also leads the research cluster “Medical Phytocannabinoid-rich Cannabis (PCR).”

Dr. med. Franjo Grotenhermen studied medicine and earned his medical doctorate in Cologne. His fields of work included internal medicine, surgery, and naturopathy. He runs a medical practice in Steinheim (Westphalia) specializing in therapy with cannabis and cannabinoids. Since 1997, Grotenhermen has been managing director of the Working Group Cannabis as Medicine e.V. (ACM) and, since 2000, managing director of the International Association for Cannabinoid Medicines (IACM). He is the author of the IACM information bulletins, which appear biweekly in multiple languages on the IACM website.

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr. rer. agr. Christian Ulrichs completed his biology studies in 1994 at FU Berlin and earned his doctorate in agricultural sciences three years later at Humboldt University Berlin. In 2002, he earned a doctorate in natural sciences at TU Munich. Since 2020, he has supervised Germany scholarships within the German Cannabis Class at HU Berlin. He also supervises doctoral theses on influencing cannabinoids and terpenes through targeted elicitor use and operates an analytical S1 safety level laboratory for determining secondary plant compounds, including CBD and THC.

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Justus Haucap is director of the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. His research focuses on competition economics and market regulation economics. In 2018, Prof. Haucap conducted a study on the costs of cannabis prohibition in Germany for the German Hemp Association (DHV).

Jan P. Witte was senior physician in the Department of Hematology, Oncology, and Palliative Medicine at Vivantes Klinikum Neukölln, Berlin, where he also led the clinical trials office. He completed his medical state examination in 2007 at Charité University Medicine Berlin and has a long-standing interest in cannabinoid medicine. Since 2018, he has been the Medical Director of Aphria Germany.

More information about the first members of the Cannabis Business Scientific Advisory Board can be found at www.cannabiswirtschaft.de/beirat/.