New information acquired from the Residence Workplace by Prohibition Companions and Enterprise of Hashish reveals that since 2021, the UK has imported the majority of its medical hashish from Spain.

For the primary time, official Residence Workplace figures have given us a complete breakdown of the quantity of medical hashish the UK is importing, and crucially from what nation.

In 2024, the UK’s complete medical hashish flower imports greater than doubled, rising from practically 7 tonnes in 2023 to over 15 tonnes in 2024.

For the 12 months thus far, the UK has imported simply over 2 tonnes, practically half of which was sourced from Spain.

Understanding the figures

Whereas the brand new information presents a transparent image of the medical hashish provide routes to the UK, it’s value noting that it stays unclear the place this hashish was grown initially, and from which nations these volumes may have been re-exported.

The complete information set (which might be obtainable in Prohibition Companions’ upcoming European Hashish Report) additionally notes imports from Finland, Switzerland, Belgium and the US, in some circumstances going way back to 2018.

Lawrence Purkiss, lead analyst at Prohibition Companions, defined: “These probably relate to hemp imports, and we excluded them from the info, based mostly on our information of which nations are producing and exporting medical hashish to the UK.

“Earlier indications of UK imports from official sources have included these figures and have due to this fact overstated imported volumes; in 2023, Residence Workplace minister Chris Philp said that up till September 19 of that 12 months, 23,890kg of medical hashish had been imported – a determine which was broadly reported.

“Nevertheless, the info signifies that almost all of that quantity got here from Finland. Since Finland doesn’t export medical hashish, we now know that the true determine for medical hashish imports in that 12 months was considerably decrease.”

Nation by nation

Based on the info, which particulars the quantity of dried hashish flower preparations (thought-about ‘unlicensed specials’) imported into the UK since 2018, quite a few new markets have develop into vital suppliers lately.

Initially, the Netherlands was the primary provider to the UK, representing the one nation to import medical hashish in 2018, and supplying the overwhelming majority of merchandise via 2019 and 2020, seeing the quantity rise by excessive double digits every year.

Nevertheless, since 2021 this has dropped off a cliff, falling from over 2.6 tonnes in 2020 to only 174kg in 2024. Its key export to the UK is considered Bedrocan.

Conversely, imports from Australia, Germany, Portugal and Spain have all skyrocketed since 2021.

Australian imports have risen from 99kg in 2021 to over 2 tonnes in 2024, whereas Canadian imports have additionally risen considerably from 59kg to over 2.5 tonnes in the identical interval.

Notably, Canadian imports spiked final 12 months, leaping from simply over 100kg in 2023, making it the sixth-largest exporter that 12 months, to the second-largest in 2024.

German imports, in the meantime, have risen constantly since 2021 when it imported 654kg, rising to 884kg, 1.01 tonnes and 1.95 tonnes within the following three years.

Portugal has seen an analogous trajectory, although like Canada it noticed an outsized improve in 2024. In 2021 it imported simply 32kg, rising to 162kg in 2022 and 384kg in 2023, however jumped to 2.5 tonnes in 2024.

Spain has remained the biggest exporter of medical hashish to the UK since 2021 and has already imported slightly below a tonne of hashish to the UK within the first quarter of 2025.

In 2021, 666kg was imported from Spain, earlier than spiking in 2022 to five.8 tonnes. In 2023 and 2024 Spain imported 3.5 tonnes and 4.3 tonnes respectively.