Finland: a citizens' initiative to decriminalize cannabis

Although cannabis isn't really a political issue in Finland, a citizens' initiative has taken up the cause and is proposing to decriminalize cannabis in Finland. The Finnish Cannabis Association has launched an information campaign on the benefits of the plant, as well as a citizen referendum aimed at decriminalizing personal use, possession, and small-scale cultivation of cannabis, and at authorizing cannabis clubs.

The campaign KK2020 is led by more than 200 activists across the country and is supported by about 20 small businesses. In particular, it organized pre-election interviews with parliamentary candidates during the 2019 elections. According to campaign coordinator Tapani Karvinen, «The video interviews were an excellent way to get parliamentary candidates to think about cannabis-related issues, even though we wish the mainstream media had done that for us.»

The referendum must collect 50,000 signatures for the bill to be debated in Parliament, and has collected half that number as of this writing.

Cannabis in Finland

In Finland, cannabis has been illegal since the 1960s. Since 2001, cannabis use and possession of a small amount have been punishable by a fine and/or a prison sentence of 6 months. For cultivation, the sentence can be up to 2 years.

Medical cannabis has been legal since 2006, when a Supreme Court ruling authorized a patient to use cannabis for medical treatment. However, the number of medical prescriptions for cannabis remains low: 373 in 2017 and 269 in 2018, with only 27 pharmacies able to dispense Sativex or the Bedrocan. Health authorities in fact, they recommend doctors not to prescribe cannabis due to a lack of evidence of its effectiveness and clinical data on treatments. It is estimated that between 2,000 and 5,000 people are treating themselves with cannabis outside of official supply channels.

According to the latest polls, approximately 24% of Finns have at least tried cannabis once in their lives.