Cannabis Professionals (CannaPro) has received a letter from solicitors acting on behalf of Mike Harlington’s Hemp Trades Assocation UK Ltd, making a series of ridiculous and unsustainable threats. We have also received a further email from his solicitors demanding that we remove 21 names from our list of Certified Businesses. We will not be doing so. There is no basis for this at all, it is merely Harlington, as usual, attempting to use threats, bullying and lies to get his own way.
We will respond in due course and all correspondence will be published openly. We intend to publish the letter and email from his solicitors and our response within the next seven days.
This is important because transparency and openness is the disinfectant that is necessary to clean up Harlington’s dirty tricks.
We have also today received a number of reports that Harlington has been telephoning CannaPro Certified Businesses and telling them that ‘he’ is suing CannaPro which is ‘an illegal trade body’, that ‘his lawyers will be contacting them about funding an illegal trade body’ and that CannaPro Certified Businesses will be ‘liable for costs when CannaPro loses the case’.
These are scurrilous lies with no truth in them at all. Anyone who has any experience of Harlington will know that this is the way he operates. He tries to bully and intimidate people, particularly those running small businesses. This was how he managed to create the entirely false but widespread belief that sellers had to be members of his association to be able legally to sell CBD. This was also, of course, a lie.
To be clear, Harlington is a systematic and persistent liar, cheat, fraudster and bully. There is a very large quantity of documentary evidence that proves this and at least six individuals with first hand knowledge of his actions who have provided testimony and will, if necessary, be called to give evidence in court.
Cannabis Professionals is an entirely legitimate trade association fully compliant with the law and all relevant regulations. ‘Cannabis Professionals’ and ‘CannaPro’ are trading names of CLEAR Cannabis Law Reform, which is the UK’s largest and longest-established cannabis group founded in 1999. We now operate as company limited by guarantee, company no. 09872949.
There is no possibility or basis in law for any CannaPro Certified Business to be liable for any debts, costs or other liabilities incurred by CannaPro and we give an absolute indemnity to all CannaPro Certified Businesses in this regard.
We encourage everyone to share this statement and its contents as widely as possible. Many people have their own prior experience of Harlington but there are also many who are taken in by his deceit and frightened by his intimidation. It is vital for the future of our industry that the truth about Harlington is as widely understood as possible.