Greece authorizes the sale and export of medical cannabis

The Greek Parliament voted last Friday in favor of a bill to legalize the sale of medical cannabis in Greece and its export. The bill, proposed by the main opposition party Syriza, received 158 votes in favor and 33 against.

Greece has legalized the production of medical cannabis in 2018 by a text that allowed production licenses to be awarded to the selected companies and production to begin. What was missing until now was the possibility of distributing cannabis products to Greek pharmacies and exporting them. the bill «Production, export and distribution of finished cannabis products of the Cannabis Sativa L type with a tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content greater than 0.2%».

The Minister of Development and Investment, Adonis Georgiadis, stressed that the essence of the bill is not the abolition of the existing law passed in 2018 under the Syriza government, but its completion and improvement so that it becomes operational and the investments already acted upon can go through to completion.

«Politics is a long-distance race, not just a conflict,» he said. declared Adonis Georgiadis, who added that «in this bill, we have an attempt at synthesis». He pointed out that in the meantime, legislation on medical cannabis has changed at European, American and WHO level, and that in this context, this bill «attempts to take the next necessary step», which is to allow the export of cannabis flowers and derived products.

To date, almost 100 licenses issued in Greece for the creation of units for the cultivation of medical hemp. The site attracting the most attention is probably that of Tikum Europe, the European branch of Tikum Olam, the Israeli leader in medical cannabis, on a 56,000m² site in Corinth, in the Peloponnese, which is now worth 40 million euros.