Chris Kelly

Could 2022 be the year when alcohol is finally challenged in its monopoly over social ‘drinking’? It may have taken a global pandemic, unprecedented levels of anxiety and a realisation that our health is actually quite important – but there may just be a new contender entering the ring. The plucky upstart comes in the form of an ancient ingredient derived from a highly misunderstood plant that has provided us with food, fibre and medicine for thousands of years, and was also one of the earliest agricultural crops cultivated by humans – Cannabis Sativa L.  My personal path towards understanding the power of this plant came not from an illicit transaction followed by a smoke-filled haze, but from a trip to Europe’s largest cultivation facility for medical cannabis near Copenhagen in Denmark. In 2018 I spent a year on a project with one of the world’s largest medical cannabis producers to create educational content about the human endocannabinoid system and the benefits of plant-derived cannabinoids for health and wellbeing – a perspective-shifting experience that led to meeting Eoin Keenan, my co-founder of the CBD business Goodrays, at the Cannabis Europa conference on London’s Southbank. MORE 2022 TRENDS:🚆 Why train travel is going to be on your 2022 bucket list🌳 From parklets to urban forests: how cities will get a whole lot greener in 2022🧙 Why 2022 is going to be the biggest ever year for fantasy on screen Eoin is a veteran in the nascent cannabis industry, and we sh