06/12/2024
Sarah Sinclair
Thousands more doctors in the Czech Republic will soon be permitted to prescribe medical cannabis under a new decree published by the Ministry of Health.
From April 2025, the country’s 5,000 general practitioners will be permitted to prescribe medical cannabis to patients with chronic pain, following years of lobbying from patients and healthcare professionals.
Medical cannabis has been legal in Czechia since 2013 but currently only specialists are permitted to prescribe. As a result only 200 doctors are actively prescribing cannabis-based medicines— a figure which has remained the same for several years.
Around 8,000 Czech patients are officially reported to be legally prescribed cannabis-based medicines, but a previous survey by the National Drug Monitoring Center found that around 600,000 Czechs use cannabis for medical purposes, and over a million had tried it for self-treatment in the past year.
It is hoped that the new legislation, which has been supported by the Czech Association of General Practitioners, will significantly improve access to legal cannabis treatments.
The decree will also reduce some of the administrative burdens on doctors, allowing for prescriptions to be issued for up to three months at a time.
A welcome step forward
The news has been welcomed by advocates of medical cannabis who have been pushing for a less restrictive framework to widen access.
