Tag: cannabis

Cannabis decriminalised in Luxembourg

Posted on by Milutin

Source: Herb

On Friday, Luxembourg’s government announced that citizens would be permitted to grow up to four cannabis plants on their property, making it Europe‘s first official country to decriminalise the production and consumption of cannabis, noted The Guardian.

The announcement follows Luxembourg’s government’s pursuit to provide fundamental changes towards the country’s perspective and view on recreational cannabis cultivation after failing to prohibit the drug. Now, people 18 and older are legally allowed to grow their own cannabis, up to four plants per household. Seeds received via trading are also deemed legal without having to specify the THC content. Luxembourg’s government also said that users could obtain seeds from shops, importation, or online purchases.

“The idea is that a consumer is not in an illegal situation if he consumes cannabis and that we don’t support the whole illegal chain from production to transportation to selling, where there is a lot of misery attached. We want to do everything we can to get more and more away from the illegal black market.” said Justice Minister Sam Tanson.

Consumption of cannabis in public spaces, selling it and transporting it remains forbidden. If someone is caught with up to three grams, they won’t be charged with a crime but a misdemeanour. But, fines are now reduced to 25 euros, a massive shift from the previous fine of 2.500 euros. “Above three grams, nothing changes, you will be considered a dealer,” Tanson stated. “Nothing changes for car drivers either: there is still zero tolerance.”

The government plans to implement a state-regulated production and distribution system to help users find quality and safe products. The majority of the revenue earned will help invest in “prevention, education, and healthcare in the broad field of addiction,” government sources added.

 

Cannabis Quick Tests and synthetic cannabinoids

Posted on by Milutin

Correlation – European Harm Reduction Network has published a factsheet on “Cannabis Quick Tests and synthetic cannabinoids“.

This factsheet aims to provide information to reduce the risk of unintentionally consuming synthetic cannabinoids by users of illegal cannabis containing Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) where they are unable to take advantage of drug checking services; if available, so-called Cannabidiol (CBD) Quick Tests can be used. Since the beginning of 2020, legal CBD cannabis has increasingly been mixed with synthetic cannabinoids and sold as illegal THC cannabis in Switzerland.

You can read the factsheet, available also in French and Italian, as well as many other factsheets Correlation produced, following this link>>>.

 

Media coverage on cannabis regulation in Serbia

Posted on by Milutin

Statement of the Minister of Health Dr Zlatibor Lončar that Serbia will regulate cannabis in line with the decision of the UN Committee on Narcotic Drugs triggered a lot of attention in the country.

Our Executive Director Milutin Milošević was invited to comment speculations that legalisation of cannabis may benefit those accused in the famous case of production of marijuana in the organic food farm Jovanjica” at the Nova S TV station. The segment from their news is available (in Serbian) following this link>>>.

Milutin was then invited for a talk with Prof Dr Vladimir Kovčin at the cable channel K1 where most of the attention was given to medical benefit of marijuana and possibilities to regulate it in Serbia.

 

Guide to Buying Marijuana Online in 2021

Posted on by Milutin

The recreational use of cannabis was legalized in Canada on 17 October 2018. It is legal for both recreational and medicinal purposes.

As of January 2019, online sales of cannabis for recreational use were well underway across Canada, via the provincial or territorial governments. Most provinces also had storefront operations selling cannabis, either operated by the government or private enterprise. The number of retailers is likely to remain limited, largely due to insufficient supply of legal cannabis from licensed producers.

Mom Canada (Mail Order Marijuana) are one of the earliest online dispensaries that sell quality medical and recreational cannabis products in Canada. The have been shipping their top quality THC and CBD weed edibles, seeds, treats and other goodies to our Canadian customers for quite some time now.

Mom Canada published their Complete Guide to Buying Marijuana Online in 2021.

The Guide is available following this link>>>.

For more information, contact Laura Minor – laura@collaborationmail.com.

 

Drugs to be regulated around Europe

Posted on by Milutin

This year started with a few interesting news about actions to regulate drugs. Here is a glimpse from the news from three European Union countries.

Icelandic Government Proposes Drug Decriminalisation

In the second part of January, the Icelandic government has proposed the decriminalisation of drugs for personal use by adults and launched a consultation exercise to gauge public opinion on the matter. The public consultation is open until 31 January.

The initiative, led by Minister of Health Svandís Svavarsdóttir, is intended as a harm-prevention measure. It includes the provision of additional resources to support users, with particular focus on more marginalised members of society.

This new approach is based on regarding users as patients rather than criminals and follows the minister’s successful introduction last year of a bill to provide safe spaces for drug injection.

The original article is available following this link>>>.

Malta will allow users to grow cannabis plants for personal use

Prime Minister on Malta Robert Abela, on 18 February when speaking to journalists, announced that cannabis users should not go to jail and will be able to grow a limited amount of plants as he fleshes out some aspects of government’s proposed reform. Abela said Cabinet will shortly be discussing a White Paper that will be published for public consultation. The reform is being piloted by Reforms Parliamentary Secretary Rosianne Cutajar.

He said the reform will end police arrests for people caught in possession of a small amount of cannabis and hinted that the current limit of 3.5g allowed at law would increase.

It was a Labour Party electoral pledge to initiate a discussion on the legalisation of cannabis but so far, no formal proposals have been put forward despite ongoing consultations.

The original article is available following this link>>>.

Norway to Decriminalize Personal Drug Use in ‘Historic’ Shift

Norway plans to decriminalize the personal use of illegal drugs in small quantities, citing recommendations from the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

The Nordic country will abolish criminal liability “for the use of drugs and the acquisition and possession of a small amount of drugs for own use,” according to legal proposals by the health-care ministry to lawmakers, published on Friday. The acts will be illegal, but not punishable.

Norway, along with its Nordic neighbours, has some of Europe’s highest drug-induced mortality rates. In contrast, the region’s welfare systems rank among the best globally. Norway had 66 cases of drug-related deaths per million adults in 2017, compared with an average of 23.7 for the European Union, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

The police will confiscate the below-threshold drugs found on any person, who will then be ordered to appear at a municipal advisory unit.

The original article is available following this link>>>.

 

Cannabis – narcotic drug or/and medicine

Posted on by Milutin

As part of the Serbian Visions Multicongress, organised by the German-Serbian Chamber of Commerce (AHK) from 1 to 5 February 2021, DPNSEE will hosted an online discussion “Cannabis – narcotic drug or/and medicine” on Friday 5 February.

Despite a very unfavourable time (Friday evening), 18 participants from Serbia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia joined. Most of them were from civil society organisations, but also we had those from the Office for Combating Drugs of the Government of Serbia and the Institute for Public Health in Serbia.

List of speakers included:

  • Milutin Milošević, DPNSEE
  • Nebojša Đurasović, Prevent, Serbia
  • Vlatko Dekov, HOPS, North Macedonia
  • Tomaž Koren, konoplja.org, Slovenia

The discussion was led around three main topics: how to regulate cannabis, medical value of cannabis (in the light of the new decision of the UN Committee on Drugs and Narcotics) and the latest developments in the region. Participants actively contributed with their positions and questions.

Recording of the discussion is available at the Serbian Visions Youtube channel.

 

DPNSEE again at the Serbia Visions multicongress

Posted on by Milutin

As part of the Serbia Visions Multicongress, organised by the German-Serbian Chamber of Commerce from 1 to 5 February 2021, DPNSEE will organise online discussion “Cannabis – narcotic drug or/and medicine“.

The discussion will be held in Serbian via Microsoft Teams application on Friday 5 February from 20:00 to 21:30 PM. You may join the event following this link>>>.

List of speakers include:

  • Milutin Milošević, DPNSEE
  • Nebojša Đurasović, Prevent, Serbia
  • Vlatko Dekov, HOPS, North Macedonia
  • Tomaž Koren, konoplja.org, Slovenia

Programme of the event is as follows

 

‘Cannabis’ and cannabinoids terminology issues

Posted on by Milutin

Our friend, independent researcher Kenzi Riboulet-Zemouli, published article addressing conceptual issues with the terminology of Cannabis and cannabinoids on the last days of 2020.

The article presents results of the research undertaken in parallel to the three-year assessment of Cannabis derivatives by the World Health Organisation. The scope is limited to Cannabis products intended for human incorporation (internal and topical consumption). Primarily embedded in pharmacognosy, the study incorporates a wide range of scholarly and grey literature, folk knowledge, archives, pharmacopœias, international law, field pharmacy, clinical and herbal medicine data, under a philosophical scrutiny. Generic and Cannabis-specific nomenclatural frames are compared to determine the extent to which they coincide or conflict.

Article ‘Cannabis’ ontologies I: Conceptual issues with Cannabis and cannabinoids terminology is available following this link>>>.

Kenzi announced that the part II of the study (‘Cannabis’ ontologies II) will follow this year with a series of more practical, concrete outputs and a proposed evidence-based nomenclature of Cannabis sativa products and cannabinoid compounds.

 

Cannabidiol (CBD) is not ‘narcotic drug’ under European law

Posted on by Milutin

From the EMCDDA website

In November 2020, the European Court of Justice published a judgement stating that cannabidiol extracted from the cannabis plant should not be considered a drug under the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

The 1961 UN Convention is the basis for national drug control laws controlling cannabis. It states that unauthorised sale of ‘cannabis flowers’ and ‘extracts and tinctures of cannabis’ should be subject to criminal penalties, and this was subsequently reflected in the EU Council Framework Decision 2004/757 on drug trafficking penalties. These flowers and extracts contain several different cannabinoids, whose concentrations can vary greatly by plant variety and by growing technique. The two most extensively studied cannabinoids are tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). While THC is known to be the main psychoactive component of cannabis, the recent review by the World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence found that CBD ‘has no potential for abuse and no potential to produce dependence’.

The European Court ruling resulted from a case referred from the French courts. In 2017, a French court convicted the seller of e-cigarette cartridges containing CBD that had been legally extracted from the whole hemp plant in Czechia, because in France only fibre and seeds are legal hemp. This case was referred to the European Court of Justice (case C-663/18), and on 19 November 2020 the court published its judgement). The court stated that, while evidence of the risk to health from CBD was still limited but may justify precautionary restrictive measures, it was inconsistent to apply the marketing ban only to organic, and not synthetic, CBD. Examining the legality of these measures that restricted the free movement of goods within the EU, the court also stated that CBD extracted from cannabis was not a drug within the meaning of the 1961 Convention; and that the EU industrial hemp regulations were not applicable to the CBD extract, as it is not an agricultural product within those regulations’ definitions.

Following this decision, the European Commission has noted in a recent press briefing that cannabidiol should not be considered as a drug within the meaning of the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 and cannabidiol can be qualified as food, provided that the other conditions of the EU Food Safety Regulation are also met.