Slovenia in Central Europe is developing plans that may set the standard in medical cannabis on a continent-wide basis.
The Freedom Movement and The Left, members of the governing coalition in this country that has a population over two million, have announced measures to treat medical cannabis like other prescription medications.
All cannabis products must meet rigorous pharmaceutical, quality assurance and production standards.
The Public Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices is responsible for the distribution and licensing of cannabis, while the Ministry of Health manages the scientific use authorisations.
‘Europe’s Most Progressive Law’
Slovenia’s new proposal has already attracted international attention. According to CannaReporter, experts at the International Cannabis Business Conference called it Europe’s most innovative medical cannabis law.
Last year, Slovenians voted in a nonbinding poll to indicate their support for legalising medical cannabis and recreational marijuana.
The Eastern European nation of Latvia is the latest country to announce its intention to relax cannabis prohibition.
Progressive Coalition members will try to influence their colleagues to create new rules that allow doctors in the almost 2 million-person country to prescribe medical marijuana.
In an interview with Latvian news outlet LETA, Progressive MP Mairita Luse argues that medical cannabis in the form of ‘tablets, capsules or extracts can be the most effective or even the only solution for patients with chronic pain, nausea, muscle spasms and other symptoms associated with conditions such as multiple sclerosis or cancer’.
Latvia currently outlaws cannabis as a result ‘patients do not discuss the issue with their health care providers and can choose wrong dozes or an unsuitable product, thus harming themselves’, said Ms Luse.
LETA reported that, in a positive development, Latvian Chief of Police Armands Ruks supports the legalisation cannabis for medicinal purposes as long as it’s based upon scientific evidence.
Currently, 26 out of 44 European countries allow access to medical marijuana.
Jersey Decriminalisation
The Crown Dependency of Jersey is to bring forward proposals which will ‘reduce the criminalisation’ of cannabis possession before the end of this year.
Tom Binet from the Ministry of Health stated that there was a policy in place to decriminalise cannabis when used for small amounts of personal consumption and also develop models of regulated cannabis supply for non-medical purposes.
The Jersey Evening Post reports that despite the fact that politicians rejected the idea of decriminalising the possession of marijuana for personal use and its recreational usage last year, they supported clauses which required ministers to introduce legislation before November of this year.
Bavaria, a conservative southern German state, has reluctantly allowed its first cannabis clubs to open despite the opposition of the health director.
On approving the trio’s licenses Bavaria’s Health Minister Judith Gerlach, of the Christian Democrat (CSU) party, said the granting of the permits does not change the state’s goal to see ‘the legalisation of cannabis for consumption purposes withdrawn by the new federal government’.
For the districts Rosenheim, Bad Kissingen, and Freising these clubs will be non-commercial and cultivate and supply cannabis for members to use recreationally.
After the coalition of CSU/CDU/Social Democrats, which will form the federal government in 2019, the conservative leadership of Bavaria urged them to reverse their cannabis policy. They said that the government would evaluate the policy this year.
Portuguese exports soar
According to the National Authority for Medicines and Health Products in Portugal, cannabis exports tripled last year.
Germany, Spain (Poland), the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland were the five top export destinations.
Records from Infarmed show that Portugal exported 4850 kg of medical cannabis in 2020. This was followed by 5,694kg in 2021 and 9,271kg in 2022.
Infarmed reports that there are 41 licensed companies to cultivate, 24 manufacturing and 15 wholesalers.
Home Office says that in the last three months the volume of cannabis being sent to Britain from Thailand dropped 90%.
UK Border Force reports that with the decriminalisation cannabis 2022, shipments to the UK have increased.
BBC reported that the new agreement, requiring all parcels coming from Thailand to undergo a check before shipping, resulted in a drop of 1.5 tonnes just three months after the deal was signed.
BBC also covered the transformation of Arjun Rajyagor from Junior Apprentice winner to cannabis entrepreneur.
Mr Rajyagor established ScriptAssist, a SaaS-based platform for processing UK medical marijuana prescriptions in 2023. It now processes over 10,000 UK cannabis prescriptions each month.