MJBiz - July/August 2024 - 12

Across the Pond
FIVE QUESTIONS
I
t hasn't always been easy, but
keeping faith in the European
cannabis market is about to
pay off for Niklas Kouparanis.
The Bloomwell Group founder
and CEO first joined Germany's
medical cannabis industry in 2017
as sales and marketing director
at Cannamedical Pharma in Köln
before founding Frankfurt-based
Farmako in 2018 and then exiting
the company in 2019.
Since launching Frankfurtheadquartered
Bloomwell in
2020, Kouparanis has grown the
company into one of Germany's
top medical marijuana businesses.
In that time, Germany's medical
cannabis market developed
slowly, constricted by regulations
that made patient access difficult
while an adult-use marijuana
market remained a distant dream.
That changed in April, after
Germany, Europe's biggest
economy, passed laws that
greatly expanded the medical
program, decriminalized
possession and set up an adultuse
landscape-albeit not a
traditional marijuana market
with the type of regulated sales
seen in various U.S. states and
Canada.
Rather, adult-use members
can grow limited amounts of
their own cannabis at licensed
marijuana clubs.
Kouparanis acknowledged
in an interview with
MJBizMagazine that there is
limited opportunity in Germany's
recreational market for now,
12 July-August 2024 | MJBizMagazine
with Niklas Kouparanis
CEO of Bloomwell Group believes the future of cannabis is in Europe
By Omar Sacirbey
with a migraine, with a sleeping
disorder. You can get cannabis
pretty easily prescribed.
That opens up a total addressable
market of around 30 million
people in Germany. Not all of
them will consume cannabis, but
I expect the market to go from
300,000 patients up to 5 million
or 6 million patients in the next
12 to 24 months.
Niklas
Kouparanis
but he was bullish on the new
medical market.
" The big change for the
industry and for economic
purposes is the medical
reclassification, " Kouparanis
said. " I couldn't have written a
better law. "
The impact, he added, will
be felt throughout Europe and
beyond.
Why are you bullish about
Germany's new medical
marijuana law?
That is the big game changer.
Medical reclassification means
cannabis is no longer a narcotic
substance in Germany. Cannabis
can be prescribed as a normal
medication similar to ibuprofen,
which is very easy to get.
You don't have to be
chronically ill anymore. You
don't need to have some kind
of treatment record proving
that you already went to a
doctor. Now, you can get it
Do you expect new
businesses to enter this new
medical landscape?
The medical cannabis market
needs to have a tremendous
amount of patience and
regulatory knowledge. That's
why we don't see so many
companies popping up at the
moment. Over time, I expect
some smart entrepreneurs to
come into the market. It will
attract a lot, and some will fail.
With 84 million inhabitants,
Germany will become by far the
biggest medical cannabis market
in the world-and, I think, the
most attractive in terms of
growth for anyone who wants to
have a foothold in Germany.
How are Germany's illicit
operators impacting the
regulated market?
A lot of people got burned
investing in the U.S. and
Canadian markets because of the
illicit market.
The big difference is that
Germany is an import market. In
places like California, cultivation
MJBiz - July/August 2024

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