There is still no official translation of the 1961 Convention, but the Ministry of Health is commissioning a study on other countries
In April, The National Assembly Health Committee called on the ministry to prepare the grounds for cannabis cultivation by the end of this year.
Where is the sticking point?
The Ministry of Health has announced a low-value study for analyzing the costs and benefits of regulating cannabis cultivation for medical purposes in Slovenia, while SD representative Bojana Muršič is asking Minister Minister Aleš Šabeder for the purpose, as all the explanations have been gathered in 2016. Members of Parliament have been misled for years.
The analysis should include an overview of cannabis cultivation regimes for medical purposes in the EU countries, identifying the varieties of cannabis that are most in demand on the market, as well as the presentation and dissemination of the results, which will take a year. It won’t be cheap; providers must prove they have completed at least two comparable health surveys worth at least € 25,000 in five years.
“All these years, the officials of the ministry you lead ensure that the risks and costs outweigh the benefits that are minimal. In a public debate that has intensified in recent years, on a number of occasions from a number of different sources the ministry has been presented credible information, publicly and clearly, which they want to collect now through the public procurement and (re)use of public funds“, Muršič warns the minister and adds that in April, the National Assembly Health Committee called on the ministry to prepare the grounds for cannabis
cultivation by the end of this year.
The Convention does not classify hemp plants as illicit drugs; that is a Slovenian particularity that was added by an unofficial translation from ten years ago.
Confusion due to wrong translation
Even in the order, the ministry points out that the regulation on hemp use in our country is based on three UN conventions, first a single drug convention of 1961 and related protocols of 1972. “The basis for the classification of the cannabis plant as well as the resin in the illicit drug list is thus the Single Convention as well as the 1988 Convention on Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. The Single Convention allows the cultivation of cannabis for medical purposes under certain conditions”, the ministry writes.
But here’s the catch. The Convention does not classify hemp plants as llicit drugs; that is a Slovenian particularity that was added with an unofficial translation from ten years ago. Exactly three years ago, this translation of the convention was removed from the websites of all bodies, including the Ministry of Justice. Thus, Slovenia does not have an official translation of the convention, thus violating said convention. Even worse, this unofficial translation is still used by the courts and police in criminal proceedings.
According to the Rules of Procedure, the Drugs Commission should operate in the Slovenian language, which is not easy when the Single convention is available in Serbian and French, since Slovenia succeeded it from Yugoslavia.
Who is responsible?
Responsibility for the professional preparation and coherence of the material, which appears everywhere from the government commission to the World Health Organization (WHO) regional organization, is in the Health promotion and control of chronic non-communicable diseases and conditions department of the Ministry of Health.
Author: Borut Tavčar, Delo
