Key Takeaways
- The UK medical cannabis market is rapidly growing, with imports doubling to over 30,000 kg in 2025 and patient numbers projected to reach 140,000 by the end of the year.
- Canada dominates UK medical cannabis supply, accounting for 70-80% of all imports as its exports grew by 562% in one year.
- The market is estimated to be worth between £302M and £389M, with projections to hit £1 billion in the next four years.
- Price competition leads to significant drops in the average cost of medical cannabis products, affecting pricing strategies of operators.
- Regulatory scrutiny is likely as the market expands; the ACMD plans to review the medical cannabis framework in 2026 or 2027.
A new report from Prohibition Partners reveals the UK medical cannabis market is expanding at a pace few anticipated. Imports doubled to over 30,000 kg in 2025, patient numbers are projected to pass 140,000 by year’s end, and Canada has rapidly become the dominant supplier.
The UK’s medical cannabis market has a scale and speed that most people simply haven’t registered yet. And based on new data released this week, that’s increasingly hard to justify.
Published earlier this month, the UK Medical Cannabis Market Update 2026 by Prohibition Partners paints a picture of a market that has quietly transformed into one of the fastest-growing in the world. The numbers are striking: imports more than doubled in 2025, the product range available to patients roughly doubled too, and patient estimates are on track to clear 140,000 by the end of this year. All of this, almost entirely outside of the NHS.
“This is no longer a niche, fringe market,” said Alexander Khourdaji, Senior Analyst at Prohibition Partners and lead author of the report. “In the space of two years, the UK has become one of the fastest-growing medical cannabis markets anywhere in the world, and most people have no idea it’s happening on this scale.”
How Big Is the UK Medical Cannabis Market in 2026?
The headline figures are hard to ignore. According to Prohibition Partners, the UK imported 30,061 kilograms of cannabis-based medicinal products (CBPMs) in 2025, more than double the 14,992 kg imported the year before. That marks the second consecutive year of doubling. The report estimates the market is now worth somewhere between £302M and £389M, with a trajectory that could push it toward £1 billion in revenues over the next four years.
Patient numbers tell a similar story. Prohibition Partners puts the current patient base at over 140,000 for 2026, up from roughly 100,000 just twelve months earlier. That growth has been fueled almost entirely by private telemedicine clinics, with around 80% of all prescriptions now issued through fewer than a dozen leading online platforms.
The product shelf has expanded dramatically too. Available cannabis-based medicine SKUs jumped from 374 to 818 between 2024 and 2025, spanning dried flower, extracts, and vapes. As new suppliers entered the market and competition pushed prices down across the board. Dried flower still accounts for roughly 80% of available products.
Why Has Canada Come to Dominate UK Medical Cannabis Supply?
Perhaps the most consequential finding in the report concerns where the UK’s medical cannabis is actually coming from. Canada has moved to the center of the supply chain at a pace that few competitors could have anticipated.
Canadian exports to the UK grew by 562% in a single year, from 2.58 tonnes in 2024 to 17.07 tonnes in 2025. Once cannabis re-routed through processing hubs such as Portugal is factored in, Prohibition Partners estimates that Canada now accounts for 70% to 80% of all CBPMs entering the UK. That figure is significantly higher than official Home Office data reflects.
The consequences for other exporting countries have been severe. Spain supplied more than half of the UK’s medical cannabis as recently as 2023. By the end of 2025, its share had collapsed to just 11%. Australia and North Macedonia have seen comparable declines.
Canada’s advantage comes down to excess production capacity, tight domestic margins, and the international expansion strategies of its licensed producers. A combination that competing markets will find difficult to challenge on volume alone.
Domestic UK cultivation currently represents around 14% of total supply, but Prohibition Partners projects that share will shrink as import volumes continue to grow faster than local production can scale.
What Is Driving Price Compression Across UK Medical Cannabis Products?
The flood of new product from Canada and domestic producers has had a predictable effect on pricing. Competition has pushed the average price of medical cannabis flower down from £7.10 to £6.80 per gram over the past year, and the report projects further declines through 2030. Vape prices fell by more than 20% in the ten months to March 2026, a sign of how quickly that segment has become contested.
That pricing pressure will not hit all operators equally. According to Prohibition Partners’ analysis, businesses with in-house Schedule 1-to-Schedule 2 processing capabilities are best positioned to absorb the margin squeeze. Those without face mounting pressure as the product market matures and differentiation becomes harder to achieve on price alone.
What Regulatory Risks Could Slow UK Medical Cannabis Market Growth?
Growth at this pace rarely goes unnoticed by regulators, and the UK’s medical cannabis sector is no exception. The Care Quality Commission has flagged concerns about oversight and prescribing consistency at some private clinics, and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is expected to conduct a formal review of the UK’s medical cannabis framework in 2026 or 2027.
Telemedicine practices are likely to be a focal point of any review. A comparable situation in Poland in late 2024 offers a cautionary reference point: when access rules tightened, prescription volumes fell sharply and recovered only slowly through structural adaptation. The UK’s ACMD review does not necessarily point toward restriction, but as Prohibition Partners notes, it remains the single variable most capable of disrupting the market’s current growth trajectory.
For investors, operators, and clinic networks, that regulatory question deserves serious attention, and the full report addresses it with a level of depth that goes well beyond what public data sources can currently offer.
Where Can You Access the Full UK Medical Cannabis Market Update 2026?
The data points covered here are a fraction of what Prohibition Partners has compiled. The UK Medical Cannabis Market Update 2026 includes a full market overview, detailed import analysis, product and pricing breakdowns, market-size scenarios, clinic-level data, and strategic implications for operators looking ahead to 2030. It comes with a 28-sheet Excel data pack so teams can run their own analysis against the underlying figures.
Prohibition Partners, a London-based data and intelligence company, publishes the report. The firm has covered the global cannabis industry since 2017. Today, more than 150,000 cannabis investors and industry professionals worldwide read its research, and major clients like Diageo, KPMG, Barclays, and Novartis trust its findings.
The full report and accompanying dataset are available here. Selected charts, data points, and the report’s lead author are also available for interview on request.
Frequently Asked Questions
Medical cannabis prescriptions in the UK are expected to surge to 140,000 patients by 2026, growing from 100,000 in 2025. Most patients receive treatment through private telemedicine clinics rather than the NHS.
According to Prohibition Partners, the UK’s imports of cannabis-based medicinal products (CBPMs) more than doubled in 2025, rising from 14,992 kg in 2024 to 30,061 kg — the second consecutive year of doubled import volumes.
Canada now dominates UK cannabis supply, accounting for 70-80% of all cannabis-based products once accounting for re-routed supplies through European hubs like Portugal. Spain’s market share dropped from over 50% in 2023 to just 11% by the end of 2025.
Prohibition Partners estimates the UK medical cannabis market is currently worth between £302M and £389M. The market is projected to approach £1 billion in revenues over the next four years.
Approximately 80% of all UK medical cannabis prescriptions are now issued through telemedicine platforms. Fewer than a dozen leading online clinics account for the bulk of that activity, with patients largely bypassing NHS routes in favor of private teleclinic services.
