Czech Republic: Medical cannabis out of stock

The Czech Republic legalized the use of medical cannabis in April 2013. Three and a half years later, dried flowers are out of stock in pharmacies. According to the Czech Ministry of Health, the company that won the tender to produce Czech cannabis did not meet the imposed specifications.

What's rare is expensive

Czech Republic imports medical cannabis from Dutch laboratory Bedrocan since the legalization of this use. Little by little, the company Elkoplast, Czech producer, was to replace Bedrocan on the shelves. Elkoplast had produced 4 harvests of 10 kg each during 2016, enough to satisfy national demand.

However, none of these harvests have arrived in pharmacies. The national drug institution refuses to distribute it for failure to comply with specifications. The contract has been broken by the government and Elkoplast must destroy its own babies, declared unfit for consumption from January 31, 2017. The strain contained 22% of THC and less than 1% of CBD.

Back to the black market

Czech patients already had restricted access to this cannabis. They had to find a doctor able to provide a prescription for dried flowers, and then find a pharmacy that sold them. Added to this was the cumbersome administrative process involved in obtaining a prescription and the high price, which was not reimbursed by health insurance.

Hana Vagnerovà, a member of a patients« association, deplores the situation: »From now on, people will be forced to find cannabis on their own, so they'll go back to the black market. How can they do that? Cannabis cultivation is forbidden and so is buying on the black market."

Since then, a new call for tenders has been launched, and the authorities would like to see a return to normal operations in August. In the meantime, the Czech Republic is considering turning to Israel, where prices would be more affordable.

Théo Caillart