Health Committee for amendments to the Act on Counteracting Drug Addiction

On Wednesday, 2 March, the Senate Health Committee dealt with amendments to the Act on Counteracting Drug Addiction, which was adopted by the Parliment at the beginning of February this year. The amendment allows for the cultivation of hemp other than fibrous cannabis by research institutes in order to obtain pharmaceutical raw material for the preparation of prescription drugs. Furthermore will enable research institutes conducting cultivation to market the pharmaceutical raw material to pharmaceutical manufacturers who will register a medicinal product based on this pharmaceutical raw material.
In accordance with the new provisions , it will be compulsory to be granted a permit by the Chief Pharmaceutical Inspector for the cultivation and harvesting of hemp. Cultivation will be carried out under supervision and will be covered by a system for signalling unauthorised access. Additionally, the cultivated hemp will be covered by the technology of remote (radio-frequency) supervision of RFID (radio frequency identification) objects. As announced by the Deputy Minister of Health - such a pharmaceutical or medicinal product will eventually be available either in drug programmes or in reimbursement.
The Committee introduced amendments extending the date of its entry into force to 30 days and a technical provision clarifying the provision on declarations of no criminal record of persons employed in the cultivation of such hemp.