Czech government licenses cannabis production

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Czech government licenses cannabis production

Czech Republic: Government Approves Legislative Changes to Licensing Cannabis for Medical Purposes

The Czech government has approved a draft amendment to the Law on Addictive Substances which will allow the issuance of licenses to cultivate and export medical marijuana. The bill would also allow more than one producer, with the State Institute for Drug Control licensing smaller ones.

Cannabis is technically legal in the Czech Republic but people with various illnesses have long been calling for the medicinal herb to be easier to obtain and cheaper.

Zdeněk Majzlík with his daughter, photo: Romana Lehmannová, Czech Radio

Last January, public health insurance was extended access, under certain conditions. The first patient to be fully reimbursed is a 52-year-old woman who suffered from a progressive form of multiple sclerosis and was not relieved by traditional medicines. Her father, Zdeněk Majzlík, regularly gives her 180 grams for medicinal use each month and rolls six joints for her daily consumption by adding small doses to her food.

“She really thought she was going to end her life because she couldn't take it anymore. Today, a doctor writes a prescription, sends it to the “examining” doctor, who approves it or not, and sends it back to the prescribing doctor. If the prescription is approved, you will be sent a code which you can take to the pharmacy ”.

It is not as easy as it sounds. Currently, there are only 90 pharmacies in the country that are licensed to buy and resell cannabis grown in the Czech Republic to patients, from the only licensed distributor, Alliance Healthcare.

Currently, only one domestic producer, Elkoplast Slušovice, supplies most cannabis flowers for medical use on the Czech market. Canadian producers, including Aurora Cannabis, Canopy Growth and Tilray, have exported small quantities to the Czech Republic.

In addition, the Ministry of Health has introduced 64 possible prescription codes, each representing a type of cannabis with a precisely defined content of CBD and THC.

Meanwhile, interest in CBD products has increased further in the Czech Republic in recent months as people seek other ways to cope with the stress and anxiety associated with the current coronavirus crisis.

Earlier this week, MPs supported a proposal of the Pirate Party aimed at joining the discussion of two amendments to the law on addictive substances, one from the opposition party, regulating the handling of cannabis for personal use, and the other from the Ministry of health on the provision of medical cannabis. Pirate Party MP Tomáš Vymazal called the initiative a small step, but an important one.

“For the first time, MPs will have to deal with the legalization of cannabis, which has so far been parked among piles of pending proposals. It is now up to us to convince MEPs to deal with legalization in committee… The Czech people have long demanded that this issue be discussed in Parliament ”.

According to the State Institute for Drug Control, from January to April almost 16 kilograms of medicinal herb were sold on the Czech market, which is about the same as for the whole of 2019.

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