enhancing cannabis related businesses using financial technology

What is it about?

Modern era advancement is not mere technological advancement but with advent of new illnesses. Manmade systems have caused in various ailments and so pushed the pharmaceutical business progress. Demand of medicines has raised whether allopathic, homeopathic or ayurvedic, Chinese medicine, naturopathic, traditional medicine etc. Pharmaceutical manufacturing is heavily dependent on ingredients from plants. Moreover, sustainable development goals have raised the awareness and trend towards vegan/vegetarian products, natural rather than synthetic elements, carbon footprints of manufacturing and so on. This chapter focuses on cannabis industry, its challenges and opportunities, its use for medical purposes, status of its legalisation, and adoption of technological advancement. The cannabis plant is abundant in chemical substances (about 540) and have various types. A key species Cannabis Sativa, also known as marijuana, contains substantial amount tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and is known for its effects on persona mental state (National Institute of Health, 2022). Many times, marijuana and cannabis are used as interchangeable terminology.

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Why is it important?

Modern era ventures are highly concerned with ethics, sustainability, and responsibility issues (Uecker-Mercado and Walker, 2012). It is quite an audacious agenda, to raise voice about the benefits of cannabis and demanding for its legalisation, in Indian context where drug addiction and illegal trade are a detrimental issue. Historical home remedies and traditional medicine aired this idea along a famous cultural phrase that God had made nothing but beneficial. It is highly recommended to explore the beneficial aspects and control any harmful aspects, related to cannabis. It is very important to put robust control measures for the flourishing Indian Cannabis industry. The need is to regulate the industry utilising fintech technology to keep it within the ethical, sustainable, and responsible boundaries. These efforts will pave way for the required research in the cannabis compound and the medical benefits could help deal with conditions like anxiety, cancer, neurological disorders, skin allergies etc. There is high need to legitimise and encourage cannabis farming, trade, and related manufacturing for medical purposes. This should be supported by positive awareness about the industry and assurances that illegal trade in cannabis products will be strictly controlled, and medical subsidies will be encouraged. While regularising complex cannabis industry sector social, environmental, and economic developments should be deeply considered (Fang et al., 2015). Resultant employment opportunities as a reform of the cannabis industry sector, could further boost the economy of rural Jammu and Kashmir. The hesitation due the prohibited nature of the industry raised questions for the enquiry. Future studies could further explore expert voice from wider stakeholder groups as this study initiated with single expert interview and was limited in bringing the perspective and related presentation. Moreover, the 60 survey responses from a prespecified geographic area contribute to restricted outcomes but an imprecise result was very few disagreements. Out of 13 questions where the response was captured over the 5-point scale of strongly agreed to strongly disagreed, only 7 questions brought minority disagreements. Furthermore, future studies could explore reasons behind the perceptions related to cannabis, additional benefits and biproducts of cannabis and fintech adoption with the cannabis industry sector. The study proposes to authorities and influential bodies to support ventures of cannabis farming and cannabis pharmaceutical compound manufacturing. Seed sourcing could be planned from local and international producers backed with research evidence related to composition and quality, further encouraging related research. Lessons could be learnt for such venturing from the Canadian research units and other international collaborations (Rotermann, 2020). Moreover, adapting Fintech advancements from US and rest of the advanced world could be useful for such venturing. For example, digital employee identity will restrict unauthorised access, e-accounting will facilitate financial transactions and other digital tools will support operations through standard operating procedures. Verification and tracking of cannabis-based products could be ensured using GPS technology. Such ventures will enhance local farming (sharma, 2020) and traditional ayurvedic medicine producers, bringing them at limelight and resulting in economic benefit. Product testing, seed quality and procedural quality assurance could be learned from developed world companies like CSIR.