On 16 December 2016, the UK’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) delivered its final report on phytocannabinoids to then-minister Sarah Newton MP. The report — “Phytocannabinoids: A review of the generic definition” — reviewed 97 plant-based cannabinoids and concluded that 12 of them fell under the generic control definition in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
The report is technical in form: tetrahydro derivatives of cannabinol, 3-alkyl homologues, ring structures. But its conclusions have shaped the entire UK CBD landscape over the decade that followed. And a growing body of public records raises questions about what the working group’s members did not declare when the report was written.
What the report actually says
The working group found that 12 phytocannabinoids fall under the control definition. For three of them — trans-Δ⁹-THC-C5, Δ⁸-THC and cannabinol-C5 — sufficient scientific evidence existed for psychoactivity. For eight others there was no evidence at all. For THCV (Δ⁹-tetrahydrocannabivarin) the evidence was contradictory.
Despite that, the working group recommended that all 12 remain controlled. For THCV — where the more recent research (Englund et al. 2016, Rzepa et al. 2015, Tudge et al. 2014) had found no psychoactivity — the conclusion was still that it would not be “appropriate to reschedule to Schedule 2 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 since only therapeutic potential, not proof, has thus far been demonstrated”. The report’s sole recommendation was that the Home Office review the research restrictions imposed by Schedule 1 classification itself.
The report is, in short, cautious. It suggests no changes. It confirms the status quo.
Who wrote it
The working group’s chair was Professor Ben Whalley, neuropharmacologist at the University of Reading. The other members per Appendix 3 of the report: ACMD chair Les Iversen, Simon Gibbons (UCL School of Pharmacy), Ric Treble and Mike White. Among those given “special thanks” are Roger Pertwee (University of Aberdeen) and Claire Williams + Gary Stephens (University of Reading, the same department as Whalley).
What the report does not contain is a conflict-of-interest declaration. No disclosure lines. No statements about financial or patent interests.
That’s where the story gets complicated.
Whalley and GW Pharmaceuticals
Ben Whalley’s research collaboration with GW Pharmaceuticals — the UK company that developed the cannabis-based medicines Sativex and Epidiolex — is publicly documented. Per the University of Reading’s own account, GW funded pre-clinical research in Whalley’s group from 2007 onwards, focused on cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabidivarin (CBDV) as treatments for epilepsy. That work was the scientific foundation for Epidiolex.
University of Reading researchers, including Whalley, are also co-inventors on several GW patents covering use of CBD and CBDV in epilepsy. After the ACMD report was filed — in May 2017 — Whalley was announced as Head of Discovery Research at GW Pharmaceuticals, a full-time position with the company he had been an academic collaborator with since 2007.
The company GW Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Jazz Pharmaceuticals in 2021 for $7.2 billion.
None of these connections are disclosed in the 2016 report.
What is now being investigated
UK industry publication The Hemp Hound Agency has during 2023–2026 published a series of investigations into how the Phytocannabinoid Working Group conducted its work. Their open letter to the Food Standards Agency and review of academic-industry connections allege among other things:
- No conflict-of-interest declaration was made when Whalley was appointed chair of the working group
- The Home Office claimed in FOI responses in 2023 that the requested information about the working group’s conflicts “was not held by the department”
- An ICO investigation (Information Commissioner’s Office) is now examining whether the Home Office’s responses met its documentation duty under UK freedom-of-information law, and whether the ACMD response was complete
- Questions have been raised about how “industrial sponsors” and CBD patent interests were handled without being named in the official documentation
Hemp Hound is not a neutral observer — the publication is run by an actor within the UK CBD industry. Their account should be read as journalism rather than as a court ruling. But their FOI disclosures are publicly documented and the questions they raise are based on documents the authorities themselves have either released — or, importantly, refused to release.
The parallel Atkins story
Two years after the ACMD report, Victoria Atkins MP was appointed Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Safeguarding — a portfolio that included UK drug policy. Atkins’s husband, Paul Kenward, was at that time managing director of British Sugar — and British Sugar had been running the UK’s largest legal cannabis cultivation at Wissington, Norfolk, since January 2017, under contract with GW Pharmaceuticals for Epidiolex production.
After media scrutiny in spring 2018, Atkins declared the conflict of interest in Parliament and recused herself from cannabis decisions. But during the period when she formally held drug policy — before the recusal — several central decisions on medical cannabis were made.
This is public and uncontroversial material. It is not about anything illegal — Atkins followed the procedural rules she was obligated to follow. But it illustrates how tightly interwoven the financial, ministerial and scientific actors were during the period when UK cannabis policy was being formed.
What it means for the CBD market
The 2016 report is part of a chain of regulatory decisions that 1) confirmed the control definition that CBD extracts fell within, 2) created the conditions for Epidiolex to become the first approved CBD-based medicine in the UK and EU 2018–2019, and 3) was followed in July 2018 by the UK consumer CBD market being more tightly regulated while the pharmaceutical route opened.
The timing isn’t coincidence. The Sajid Javid decisions on medical cannabis in November 2018 (after the Billy Caldwell and Alfie Dingley cases) sat politically parallel to the EU Commission’s reclassification of CBD extracts as Novel Food in January 2019. Both processes produced the same outcome: a high bar for consumer products, an open path for pharmaceuticals.
That’s where the British and European CBD debate’s critical voice — carried by actors like EIHA, Hemp Hound and several industry organisations — has its roots. The question is not whether Epidiolex is a legitimate medicine (it is) or whether GW Pharmaceuticals violated any rules (nothing suggests they did). The question is whether the regulatory framework that shaped the consumer market was designed in a way where those who profited most from the outcome were also those who scientifically and politically advised on its terms — without that connection being documented in plain text.
The open questions
This is what the Nolan Principles — the seven British principles for public life (selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership) — were formulated to manage. And it is against them that Hemp Hound’s and others’ questions are posed:
- Should Whalley’s patent and financial connections to GW Pharmaceuticals have been declared when he was appointed chair of the working group?
- If they were declared but not archived — how were they handled?
- If they were never declared — what routine review processes should have caught them?
- How is this evaluated relative to the report leading to a regulatory situation where specifically GW Pharma’s products had a path forward in the market?
The ICO investigation and FOI tribunal will resolve the documentation questions. The legal and political implications remain open. What we can establish today is that the ACMD report from December 2016 does not contain a conflict-of-interest declaration, and that its chair became, six months later, head of research at the company whose patent portfolio the report’s conclusions indirectly preserved the value of.
That is not an allegation of crime. It is an observation about a process where openness broke down.
Sources
- ACMD. Phytocannabinoids: A review of the generic definition. Final report 16 December 2016.
- University of Reading. 10 years in the making: drug discovered by Reading scientists reaches UK children with severe epilepsy (2019).
- GW Pharmaceuticals. Press release May 2017 — Whalley as Head of Discovery Research.
- Verdict. British Sugar cannabis meets the world’s medical marijuana needs.
- Releaf UK. Victoria Atkins Excluded From Medical Cannabis Matters.
- Business of Cannabis. Has GW Pharmaceuticals — Now Jazz Pharmaceuticals — Knee-Capped The CBD Industry?
- The Hemp Hound Agency — investigative series 2023–2026 (source for the specific critique of documentation gaps).
- UK Gov. The 7 Principles of Public Life (Nolan Principles).
- BBC. Cannabis oil: Billy Caldwell case.
Daniel Johansson founded Helsama OÜ. See Ownership and transparency for our editorial principles.