STA, 18 February 2021 - The opposition Alenka Bratušek Party (SAB) has tabled a bill that would legalise the growing of medical marijuana, a step it says would improve access for patients.
"We're not talking about marijuana legalisation, we want to create the legislative conditions to grow this plant for medical purposes," MP Andrej Rajh told the press on Thursday.
Under existing rules, it is permitted to use marijuana for medical purposes, but since growing is not allowed Slovenia relies on imports of mostly synthetic products.
Slovenia has a thriving underground market in medical marijuana, a substance particularly popular among chronic patients and people with cancer.
According to Rajh, the new legislation, which is modelled on Germany's 2017 law, would regulate the market and provide medical marijuana grown in a controlled way.
Borut Štrukelj of the Ljubljana Faculty of Pharmacy said there were currently two institutions in that grow medical marijuana for scientific purposes, specifically to determine which cultivars are best for different growing conditions.
"There is a lot of knowledge," he said, noting that pharmacies could make products from Slovenian-grown cannabis.
He said this would also reduce the size of the black market, create export opportunities and generate significant budget revenue.
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