“We’re very proud to be hosting medical cannabis research,” Dr Václav Trojan, head of the Faculty of Agronomy of Mendel University in the Czech Republic, told a group of representatives from some of Europe’s most exciting cannabis organizations who had convened for a three day seminar arranged by the International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute (ICCI) and run by Americans for Safe Access (ASA).

Mendel University, located in the city of Brno, has been researching medical cannabis since the government made it legal to do so around two and a half years ago. The first European seminar of Patient Focused Certification (PFC) was held there last week.

A majority of members of the ruling right-wing VVD want a change in the party’s policy towards legalised marijuana cultivation.

At the party congress this weekend, a majority of members voted to end the ‘strange situation’ in which the sale of small quantities of marijuana in licenced coffee shops throughout the Netherlands is accepted but production is not.

VVD ministers and MPs have consistently rejected calls for any form of regulated cultivation to remove the grey area between criminal growers and licenced sellers. The initiative for change came from a number of prominent members in the south of the country, where illegal marijuana cultivation is rife and drugs gang violence common.

Cannabis is hugely popular. 182m people use cannabis across the world and, with this level of exposure, the way cannabis is regulated matters. As does the evidence of risks and benefits to health which underpins regulation.

Sometimes saying nothing is as telling as saying something. Silence can suggest retaining the status quo. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been silent about the international regulatory controls on cannabis since its inception in 1935. The past 80 years have brought dramatic advances in scientific knowledge about cannabis, so it is odd that it has not provided updated advice about its legal status. 

Marking another milestone on the road to ending cannabis prohibition in the Netherlands, a sizeable majority of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s VVD party have voted to support what they’re calling “smart regulation” of cannabis. Following a vote at a Nov. 19 party converence in Noordwijkerhout, the VVD’s platform going into the general elections next spring will now include the intention “to redesign the entire domain surrounding soft drugs.”

Although the United Nations international drug treaties have upheld an official prohibition against marijuana, the marijuana industry has spread across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

In a test starting 2018, therapeutic marijuana will be legal in Denmark for 1,500 patients suffering from chronic diseases. Danish farmers are lobbying the government to allow them to satisfy this new market, Dagens Nyheter reports.

Since it's currently illegal to grow marijuana in Denmark, cannabis for the trial is being imported from the state-run production of the Netherlands. 

But as the only producer for medicinal marijuana in Europe the Netherlands can only supply a tenth of the demand for therapeutic cannabis the Danish test group is facing. Should the test result in permanent legalization of medicinal marijuana the problem will become all the more acute.  

The Transvaal pharmacy in The Hague, the seat of Dutch government, is the only place in the Netherlands where patients can buy whole plant cannabis oil of guaranteed quality. Pharmacist Armin Ramcharan distills the oil from three different varieties of cannabis grown by Bedrocan, a medical cannabis producer. Patients from as far afield as Italy travel to The Hague to buy it.

Hash oil is considered a hard drug under Dutch law, in the same category as heroin or cocaine. This is why Bedrocan, the country’s only legal medical cannabis grower, cannot produce oil. The company’s license is limited to cultivating cannabis flower.

After a backroom meeting between political party leaders, a slim majority of Dutch Parliament has aligned behind a proposal to regulate the flow of cannabis that feeds the country’s coffeeshops. If enacted, the new system would bring the Netherlands closer to the legal, adult-use markets emerging across North America.

Sales by coffeeshops of small amounts of cannabis are tolerated in the Netherlands, but the coffeeshops currently don’t have a legal way to obtain product, as commercial grows and wholesale distribution are forbidden. To remedy this so-called backdoor paradox, the Dutch bill would create a system of licensed producers to cultivate cannabis under government supervision and supply the coffeeshops.

With memories of the Global Medicinal Cannabis Summit: Advancements in the Age of Cannabis still fresh in our minds, VolteFace has been particularly fortunate to receive the following in-depth review of the event – penned by Dr Callum Swift, who graduated with an MA in Neuroscience from Trinity College, Dublin.

‘Legalising cannabis plants would benefit health’.

A majority of MPs now seem likely to back draft legislation from the Liberal democratic party D66 which would regulate legalised marijuana cultivation under government control.

The bill, drawn up by MP Vera Bergkamp, was backed by Labour, GroenLinks, the Socialist and pro-animal PvdD. But now two MPs who left the anti-Islam PVV to form a breakaway right-wing party have said they too will support the measure, the AD said on Friday.

Bergkamp hopes that introducing licenced marijuana production will remove the grey area between illegal cultivation and licenced cannabis cafes or coffee shops, where small amounts of marijuana can be bought for personal use.