What are you smoking?

The UK’s illegal cannabis-using community exceeds 2.5M, with around 1.8M using it for health issues like chronic pain. Despite this, many continue to buy from dealers rather than legally.

To uncover what’s really in street-bought cannabis—ranging from mould to E. coli—we lab-tested samples and went straight to the source. We found that 90% of illegal street samples were contaminated. Billboards in drug hotspots highlighted these findings and QR code stickers on lamp posts flipped an innovative dealer tactic against them. The result? Over 700 media hits and an 18% spike in new patients for Curaleaf after launch.