Canamedics has become the first company in all Catalonia (northeastern Spain) to get a licence for growing cannabis with high levels of THC.
The Barcelona start-up got the green light from Spain’s agency for medicines and health products (AEMPS) specifically for therapeutic research.
While growing hemp is legal in Spain under strict conditions, guidelines ask farmers to discard the CBD flower.
Hemp strains must also contain no more than 0.2% THC content.
Nevertheless two brothers – Alvaro and Luis Comas – left lucrative positions in PwC and leading law firm Cuatrecasas to pour €2 million into high-THC cannabis production.
Their 2000m2 plot in Olesa de Montserrat, Barcelona, is split between growing marijuana and a lab space for proving the pharmaceutical grade of extracts.
The AEMPS licence marks a turning part in marijuana and CBD legality in Catalonia.

Research into cannabis as a therapeutic substance has grown exponentially since both the US and UK removed prohibitions in 2018, with the EU following suit in 2020.
But until now the only licensed CBD medical products come from cannabis grown outside Spain.
Furthermore, the only known farms cultivating CBD in Spain – with authorisation to use CBD flowers – are strictly for topical use.
This means that CBD oils sold legally in Spain often state they are not for ingesting, despite them being high-quality CBD oils.
(Read our 7 things to know about buying CBD from Amazon in Spain here.)
Germany in particular has reached out to Canamedics with interest in trials and high-THC content cannabis.
The Comas brothers have a stellar cast behind investigations, with help from the Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentaries and the Centro de Investigacion en Genomica Agricola at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Canamedics also have an agreement with the Canadian Medcann Pharma group to obtain different strains of marijuana – EU-certified seeds may only have under 0.2% THC content.
“Cannabis is not an alternative cure-all, but it can help in specific situations like reducing pain or even treating anorexia,” Alvaro Comas said.
“There’s even possibilities to replace morphine and other damaging opiates with cannabis.”
The group plans to make €1.8 million in their first year and break even by year three.
Should the investigations prove successful, Barcelona will be paving the way for further research and development of the homegrown CBD oil industry.
(Click here to read about Spain’s first hemp farm authorised to sell CBD flowers.)
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