On Wednesday the 2nd of June, the lower house of the Czech Parliament approved a bill of amendments to the country's laws governing the production and prescription of medical cannabis and hemp.
The major stipulations of the amended bill are as follows:
-Medical cannabis may be cultivated by multiple licensed private groups who may also manufacture medical cannabis products
-Export of medical cannabis will now be explicitly legal
-The marketing of extracts such as isolates and tinctures will be permissible
-The system of electronic prescriptions for cannabis will be updated to ease the process for doctors and patients
-Hemp products with less than 1% THC will not be considered addictive substances, clearing the way for cultivation and production of products with these concentrations
-The bill has now cleared the tallest hurdle on the way to becoming law. The Senate and President must now consider the bill before the bill is formally accepted, but local advocates have high hopes that the approval on Wednesday means that the odds are good and that this will be achieved.
Pavel Kubu, CEO of the International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute, discusses the recent events and what these mean for patients in the Czech Republic: “Parliamentary approval of the bill is a major milestone for patients and advocates of medical cannabis in the Czech Republic. We do have to remain realistic in the amount of work that needs to be done. This bill could do much to advance medical cannabis and hemp in the country, but a lot of this rests with the implementation of the laws, and groups like the ICCI will be working hard with the government over the coming months to see that the interests of patients and the industry are honored.”
The Czech Republic is a pioneering country in the regulation of substances such as cannabis, particularly in terms of harm reduction and patient access. Laws in force since 2010 mean that it is not a criminal offence to possess, or to use personal amounts of drugs, of any kind. Medical cannabis has been legally accessible in Czechia since 2013. However, access to legally prescribed products did not gain traction until 2018 and has grown exponentially since then. This has been helped by recent legislation in force since 2020, meaning 90% of the cost of medical cannabis must be covered by insurance agencies for amounts up to 30g per month.
As medical cannabis becomes liberalized in the Czech Republic, opportunities to produce cannabis within the market and export to the European market are appearing.
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