Businessman Giles Day has expressed concern that new rules for use of cannabis in the island might be pushed aside amid proposed new regulations for a £3m export industry.

Mr Day said ’health not wealth’ should be the watchword as he fears large corporate businesses will step in with the aim of ’exploiting the island’s natural resources’ to make money out of medicinal cannabis.

Mr Day, aged 41, who is the chairman of the Manx Canna Business Association, and runs a shop called The Greenhouse Dispensary in Strand Street, Douglas, believes the government is approaching the issue from ’the wrong angle’.

He said: ’This is an issue that needs to be driven forward by public health.’

He pointed to the alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical markets - ’all three of those markets are allowed to be driven by corporations and over time those industries have been monopolised by large corporations’.

Mr Day said he was one of a group of people in the island ’who have been campaigning for many years to enable us to be able to produce our own supply of medicinal cannabis.

’We have not been campaigning for many years to create an environment to allow large corporations to come in and exploit the Isle of Man’s natural resources in order to create profit.’

A consultation on the export of cannabis-derived products is under way in the island and regulations to pave the way for a £3m medicinal cannabis export industry could be put before Tynwald by December.

But in the House of Keys last week it appeared that new rules for use of cannabis in the island still seem a long way off. Enterprise Minister Laurence Skelly stressed the domestic market for prescribing and potential recreational use of cannabis were separate subjects and under other government departments’ remit.

Mr Day, who used to work in international finance, says the government is approaching the matter the wrong way and said: ’It needs to be driven by public health and not capitalism. I’m not anti capitalist, I am a business owner but it is not always about the money.’

He said: ’We have a unique opportunity to set a global standard for this industry.’

Mr Day admits it is a ’complex’ issue but said: ’I believe that legalisation and regulation of all drugs should be taken out of the hands of criminal gangs and put back in the hands of public health.’

He added: ’When we talk about legalisation we are not talking about encouraging or endorsing drug use. All we are talking about is taking back control of the existing illicit market.’

Mr Day sells CBD products, legal cannabinoids and hemp products. A poster hanging up on the wall proclaims: ’Not everyone wants to get high. Some people just want to get better.’