Sarah McGarrell Cannabis Summit White Paper Author: Moving from Prohibition to Medical to Adult Use: Will Europe and Africa Follow the Path Taken in the Americas?

Following up on her successful panel discussion at the inaugural Global Cannabis Regulatory Summit held in March 2025, Pierce Atwood Cannabis Practice leader Sarah McGarrell authored a white paper expanding on the panel’s topic, “Moving from Prohibition to Medical to Adult Use: Will Europe and Africa Follow the Path Taken in the Americas?” 

As both developed and emerging countries explore the opportunities presented by legalizing and creating an adult-use cannabis market, there remains significant uncertainty on how best to participate in this market, and stakeholders are examining what has worked (or failed to work) in North America and other countries that have already implemented adult-use programs.

Sarah’s white paper examines:

• Legislation: When creating legislation to establish a “successful, stable, and participatory adult-use cannabis program,” incorporating advocacy and a social agenda have proven difficult to administer and execute.
• Executing on legislative priorities: It can be extremely challenging for regulators when the legislation creates “intellectual disconnects,” where the “statutory elements are not necessarily harmonized,” making it difficult to write and implement regulations. But Sarah notes that it’s OK if regulators can’t meet all the legislative goals. Instead, they should decide what defines success, and “assess their progress against goals that they identify as achievable and essential to the success of the program.”
• Local control: Often, local control is a “powerful way” to move an agenda forward. But local control can also lead to a more complex regulatory environment for everyone involved.
• Certainty and stability drive innovation: Those new to this market want to understand the rules, and they need those rules to be “clear, fair, and executable.” For example, when regulations encourage a more robust and complex supply chain, “cultivators can compete on price and quality and are not limited by geographic location.” When there are too many regulatory directives (like in Massachusetts), it’s difficult for regulators to balance the “myriad priorities while encouraging the market to grow.”
• Thing big, draft narrow, make change: Rather than complicate the regulator’s job, jurisdictions entering this market are better off separating the basic issues of market scope, standards, and guardrails from the more difficult issues related to complex program features and social commentary.

Click here  to read Sarah's complete article, which begins on page 62.

Sarah McGarrell works with emerging growth and closely held companies as well as angel investors, family offices, and institutional investors focused on privately held investments across all stages of growth. She also serves as head of the firm’s cannabis practice.

Pierce Atwood was a lead sponsor of the inaugural Global Cannabis Regulatory Summit, which brought together regulators, government officials, and other key stakeholders from more than a dozen countries, with the goal of fostering better connections and understanding between policy decision makers and leaders in the world of both legal medical and adult use cannabis applications in jurisdictions around the globe.