One Step Closer: Czech Govt Approves Plan Introducing Regulated Cannabis Market

The Czech government has approved a new drugs strategy to run until the end of 2025 that includes the introduction of a strictly regulated market in cannabis.

The exact rules of the action plan are set to be set by an expert group, Prime Minister Petr Fiala said after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

The Czech Republic is considered one of the most liberal countries regarding cannabis legislation.

Although its recreational use is still illegal, it decriminalized cannabis possession for personal use in 2010 and legalized medical cannabis in 2013.

In addition, the Czech Republic is one of the few European countries that cultivate hemp with a THC content of up to 1% for industrial purposes. In comparison, other EU member state legislations have set the limit to about 0.2%, although the European Union recently decided to increase the THC level from 0.2% to 0.3% for authorized hemp crops used for industrial purposes.

Hence, the regulation of the recreational market appears to be a natural path to follow for a country in which about 30% of the adults have tried cannabis, and 8% to 9% use it regularly, according to the Addiction Report released in August by the National Monitoring Center on Drugs and Addiction (NMS).

The national anti-drug coordinator Jindřich Vobořil said previously that fresh taxation of addictive substances and effective tax collection could generate up to CZK 15 billion for the state annually.

Young Czechs First In Europe For Cannabis Consumption

The availability of drugs in European Union countries remains high, and in some cases is higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to this year’s report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).