Cannabis Trade Association Scam

PWR exposes Reynolds’ latest scam

Author: Kevin John Braid

Following the Psychoactive Substances Act (PSA), which banned the main revenue stream of headshops throughout the UK who were selling so-called legal highs, many were looking for new products that didn’t fall foul of the law.

Enter CBD, a non-psychoactive cannabinoid that has therapeutic benefits and acts as an anti-psychotic. Like most products, you can get quality versions, but there are snake oil salesmen who sell rip off products to vulnerable patients.

Last year, the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) announced that CBD is a medicine and therefore not legal to sell until it has been approved. This didn’t stop the sale, since vendors started selling it not for consumption, and since it doesn’t get you high, it is not covered by the PSA.

Unfortunately, industries like this attract snake oil salesmen and conmen, so enter Peter Reynolds, the scourge of the cannabis law reform movement, who saw this as an opportunity to cash in on the CBD trade, as well as some of his usual grassing activities.

Last November a Limited Company was registered in England and Wales that has Reynolds’ paw prints all over it. The official company name is Hemp Trades Association UK Ltd, which is acting as a front for the Cannabis Trade Association, which has a cheap-looking website making outlandish claims they are the only ones who have a relationship with the MHRA. They even have the audacity to claim to be a  “responsible, caring and professional organisation working to foster the development of a legal, ethical and regulated Cannabis industry.”

The idea that any organisation associated with the convicted fraudster, Peter Reynolds, could be in any way caring, responsible, or ethical is beyond outer space.

It is also not legal for them to register what is effectively a Trade Union as a UK Ltd company.

So what does this new organisation have that nobody else can offer? Not much, apart from a website that is trying to scam money from businesses and uses bullying tactics to scare people into signing up, by threatening to report them to the authorities if they do not do so. It should come as no surprise that an organisation that Reynolds is behind should be up to his familiar trademark of making outlandish and untrue claims, trying to scam money out of people, and of course threatening people with the authorities if they stand up to their bullying trademarks.

To make matters worse they are endorsing companies that are selling shit quality CBD oil. So it doesn’t matter if you are a scammer, send Reynolds and his cronies £1,500 and they’ll publically endorse you on a website with lots of fancy buzzwords and inaccurate claims. I’d personally pay not to be endorsed by any group associated with Peter Reynolds, it’s akin to Fred West endorsing your new Baby Sitting service.

The UK cannabis trade is a flourishing industry with some players who have been in the game for over twenty years. It’s also a friendly industry, where all the key players know each other. Unsurprisingly, especially with the news that the Cannabis Trade Association is associated with the conman and grass Peter Reynolds, not many people were prepared to send them cash, even though they know Reynolds still needs it to pay off his legal bill to Chris Bovey, after his failed libel action against him.

In typical Reynolds style, companies that refuse to sign up to his little scam are receiving threatening emails with a carrot and stick approach that tells them what they are doing is illegal, falsely claims that they are the only organisation that can get them a green light from regulatory bodies such as the MHRA and the Food Standards Agency, and then goes on to infer they would be reported to the authorities, unless they part with their cash and sign up to the Cannabis Trade Association scam.

When Reynolds originally took over the old Legalise Cannabis Alliance, he stole their cash for dodgy personal expenses and rebranded it as CLEAR. That little scam has obviously dried up since Reynolds made CLEAR toxic, which is no doubt why he’s using the Cannabis Trade Association as a front to scam businesses out of money, using his usual techniques of false claims and threatening to report them to the authorities.

Be warned folks, the Cannabis Trade Association is a scam, they have no legitimacy. Do not send them your hard-earned money and do not give in to Reynolds’ familiar bullying tactics of making threats to grass you up, or fall for the snake oil salesmen lies published on the CTA’s website.

Edit: since this article was published the CTA have cut all ties with Peter Reynolds.