The Czech Republic is constant to make progress on an formidable overhaul of its drug insurance policies, with sweeping reforms geared toward making a regulated marketplace for low-risk psychoactive substances and addressing long-standing points in medical hashish entry.
Beginning July 2025, the sale of low-THC hashish and kratom might be allowed beneath the newly established Psychomodulatory Substances Act, marking the nation as the primary to create a definite class for low-risk substances exterior conventional narcotics legal guidelines.
Concurrently, the federal government is working to increase entry to medical hashish by permitting normal practitioners to prescribe these remedies, a transfer lengthy wanted by sufferers and healthcare advocates.
Whereas these reforms symbolize a major shift in coverage, consultants warning that systemic limitations, together with insurance coverage limitations and regulatory gaps, might hinder their full potential.
How the Psychomodulatory Substances Act Got here to Life
In Might, 2024, MEDCAN24 reported that the Czech Home of Representatives accepted proposals for the regulation of so-called ‘psychomodulating substances’.
This shaped a part of landmark laws put ahead by the Czech Republic’s former Nationwide Coordinator for Drug Coverage Jindřich Vobořil, who had been engaged on the invoice for over a 12 months in parallel with a separate invoice to legalise hashish.
The invoice, described as ‘revolutionary’ by its proponents, aimed to ‘regulate a broad vary of gear that don’t pose a severe danger to public well being or that don’t danger severe social impacts on people or society.’
On January 01, this act got here into pressure. Nonetheless, it’s only this week that any substances have been formally added to this new class, Kratom and low-THC hashish.
The Psychomodulatory Substances Act introduces a three-tier system for psychoactive substances:
- Prohibited Addictive Substances: Excessive-risk substances like heroin and methamphetamine are utterly banned.
- Substances Beneath Evaluate: Newly rising psychoactive substances, resembling HHC (hexahydrocannabinol), are studied for as much as two years to judge their security.
- Psychomodulatory Substances: Low-risk substances, together with kratom and low-THC hashish, are accepted on the market beneath strict circumstances.
Ought to ‘substances beneath assessment’ recieve affirmation of their relative security, they are going to be added to the record of psychomodulating substances and accepted on the market.
The newly revealed invoice, which is able to permit the sale of low-THC hashish flower and extracts, states: “Hashish with THC content material beneath 1% doesn’t current a considerable danger to well being or society and might be regulated beneath strict circumstances to make sure protected use.”
Why Expanded Medical Hashish Entry Would possibly Nonetheless Fall Brief
It comes simply weeks after one other invoice was handed, enabling nation’s 5000 normal practitioners to prescribe medical hashish to sufferers from April 2025, following years of lobbying from sufferers and healthcare professionals.
Medical hashish has been authorized in Czechia since 2013 however presently solely specialists are permitted to prescribe, which means solely round 200 docs are actively prescribing cannabis-based medicines.
Round 8,000 Czech sufferers are formally reported to be legally prescribed cannabis-based medicines, however a earlier survey by the Nationwide Drug Monitoring Heart discovered that round 600,000 Czechs use hashish for medical functions, and over 1,000,000 had tried it for self-treatment prior to now 12 months.
Whereas many lawmakers, politicians and even some business voices believed that this growth of prescribing docs might resolve this bottleneck situation, one native business skilled believes this may ‘positively’ not be the case.
“The problem is systemic,” they advised MEDCAN24.
“This implies there’s a niche of almost 600,000 between these utilizing hashish for well being functions and those that are prescribed it. The concept that GPs might bridge this hole is naive, particularly given the constraints they face from insurance coverage corporations. The systemic points go far deeper than simply increasing prescribing rights.”
They defined that within the nation, sufferers prescribed medical hashish pay 10% of the associated fee, whereas the remaining 90% is paid by their insurance coverage for as much as 30g a month. In the event you want extra, this must be mentioned together with your insurance coverage supplier.
“Insurance coverage corporations play a major function right here. They set prescribing limits for docs, that are based mostly on numerous elements, just like the variety of registered sufferers. If a health care provider prescribes an excessive amount of hashish and exceeds these limits, they face scrutiny from the insurance coverage corporations.”
Docs who exceed this quota might be audited by the insurance coverage firm, seeing them danger sanctions and different penalties, which means the vast majority of docs will stay reluctant to prescribe medical hashish.
“Primarily based on info from representatives of normal practitioners within the Czech Republic, it’s unrealistic to count on a health care provider to tackle greater than 5 hashish sufferers. This method doesn’t resolve the issue in any respect.
“Whereas we do count on some enhance in affected person numbers—probably from the present 8,000 to fifteen,000, and even 20,000—these are simply tough, unprofessional estimates on account of a scarcity of dependable information. Even when we attain 20,000 sufferers, that’s nonetheless a drop within the ocean in comparison with the estimated 600,000 folks utilizing hashish for medical functions.”