Medical cannabis is legal. What will change when the new law comes into effect?

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On December 21, the Council adopted the draft law on the legalization of medical cannabis in the second reading.

Bill No. 7457, which was supported by 248 people’s deputies, allows the use of medical cannabis in medicine, science and industry.

The Ministry of Health will still approve the list of diseases and conditions for which a patient can be prescribed medicine based on medical cannabis.

“Thank you on behalf of the medical community for the decision made, because medical cannabis is medicine for millions of people: cancer patients, people with multiple sclerosis, patients receiving palliative care, etc.” – stated in the department.

The Ministry of Health also added that after the first reading, the law was finalized – almost 900 amendments were submitted to it, of which more than a hundred were taken into account.

Photo: belchonock/Depositphotos

Several patient communities reacted positively to the adoption of the draft law, in particular, “Patients of Ukraine”, “Ukrainian Association of Medical Cannabis”, “Athena. Women against Cancer” and “100% Life” – Network of PLHIV.

“The patient community has been waiting for this decision for 5 long years. It finally happened and we are very grateful to all the deputies who listened to the patients. Thanks to the draft law, medicine based on medical cannabis will not have to wait 5-7 years.

Thanks to the possibility of import, patients will be able to get medicines in pharmacies that have the appropriate license in six months. In addition, after the development of all the necessary by-laws, Ukraine will be able to independently manufacture such drugs”– told “UP. Life” Inna Ivanenkoexecutive director of the “Patients of Ukraine” charity fund.

The law will allow patients with serious illnesses to use medical cannabis-based drugs on a doctor’s prescription, without having to travel abroad or seek drugs illegally.

The foundation says that doctors will be able to write electronic prescriptions for medical cannabis-based drugs, scientific institutions will be able to research cannabis and its derivatives, and businesses will be able to grow hemp and produce medicine from it under “clearly regulated licensing.”

What does the law provide? Brief explanation

• The draft law regulates the circulation of cannabis only in medical, industrial and scientific activities.

Distribution and possession of cannabis for recreational use (the main substance of which is the psychoactive THC) is a crime.

In Ukraine, criminal responsibility is provided for the independent cultivation of cannabis, as well as the circulation and storage of recreational cannabis.

Cannabis is still included in schedule I “especially dangerous narcotic drugs, the circulation of which is prohibited”, but with clarification – except for the purposes provided for in articles 15, 19, and 20. Article 15 provides, in particular, that cannabis for medical purposes can be grown only by legal entities that will receive an appropriate license.

• Interest tetrahydrocannabiol (psychoactive substance) in the dry mass of cannabis plants for medical use will be determined by the Cabinet of Ministers after appropriate laboratory tests.
• The production of medicines and their circulation will be controlled at all stages.

Only legal entities that receive the appropriate license and GMP certificate will be able to grow cannabis under 24-hour video surveillance with access for the National Police, explains People’s Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak.

The circulation of cannabis for medical purposes or medicinal preparations based on this plant will be tracked in an electronic register.

Each bush will have individual coding to track the movement of the plants to the patient. And each unit of packaged products will be marked with a barcode.

• Medicines based on medical cannabis will be released only by doctor’s prescription by electronic prescription and according to medical indications, as is currently the case with morphine, for example.

Patients will be able to carry and store such drugs in the amount determined by a single prescription.

• Production of new narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances will be possible only for medical, scientific and scientific-technical purposes.

Only licensed academic institutions will do this. They will also be required to register them and conduct clinical trials in accordance with the law.

Read also: Why do Ukrainians need medical cannabis? German professor on the effect of drugs on PTSD

Why is the draft law criticized?

Co-founder of the Freedom March for drug policy reforms Taras Ratushny says that the draft law has “collisions and “holes” that will block scientific research on cannabis and the production of domestic medicines.

He explained that cannabis must be transferred from table I with particularly dangerous substances, the circulation of which is prohibited, to table II, where narcotics with limited circulation are indicated.

After the first reading, supporters of the draft law hoped for amendments, but cannabis remained in table I. Taras Ratushnyi believes that the medical use of cannabis is still not clearly defined enough.

“The main thing in the law is certainty and clarity. Therefore, all exceptions to the rule (here – the prohibition of circulation) must be submitted in the same way. In the law, this is formalized with article numbers separated by commas: 15 (cultivation), 17 (production), 19 (operational and search activity) , 20 (scientific activity). But exceptions for medical cannabis are added separately and this is suddenly a paragraph of the text.

This text can be a clarification, but for this, two more numbers must appear in the list of exceptions: Art. 16 (development) and Art. 21 (medical use), as the ultimate goal of the development and further production of active substances from “medical” hemp. Then the paragraph about medicines from medical cannabis (“only in the form of a medicinal product”) in Art. 21 will be an important clarification”he wrote on Facebook.

At the same time, the head of the “Ukrainian Medical Cannabis Association” Gennady Shabas is skeptical of these remarks and believes that the law will work.

“What has changed since the first reading… It has become clearer, transitional provisions have been prescribed, how exactly (cannabis – ed.) will be used in medicine, in scientific activities. There have been fewer different readings.

The draft law was created by dozens of law makers, specialists in the field of medicine, heads of various state and non-state institutions, and everyone worked to make the law work.”– adds Shabas.

When will the law come into effect?

Photo: HayDmitriy/Depositphotos

The law will come into effect six months after its publication – during this time, regulatory legal acts will be brought into line with it.

“In another six months, various by-laws, regulatory acts, all treatment protocols will have to be written. In six months, medical cannabis will be able to be prescribed to patients, and patients will be able to get medicine in pharmacies.”– adds Gennady Shabas.

We will remind you that in July, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a draft law on the legalization of medical cannabis in the first reading. Then the People’s Deputies introduced more than 800 amendments to the draft law.

The National Security and Defense Council, the Ministry of Veterans Affairs and more than 40 oncologists of Ukraine called for the adoption of the draft law. After all, cannabis-based medicines are used, in particular, to treat cancer patients, people with PTSD, epilepsy, etc.

Cannabis-based medicines are authorized in 56 countries, including the EU, Canada, Great Britain and the United States.

Read also: What does medical cannabis help and whether it will be legalized in Ukraine in the near future

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