Medical cannabis is available again at St. Anne’s Faculty Hospital in Brno. Photo: Fotolia
Brno, Jan 15 (BD) – The Czech law allows patients with a prescription to purchase medical marijuana at pharmacies. Due to complicated cultivation regulations, medical cannabis has so far been mostly imported from other countries. This resulted in a higher price of cannabis, as compared to the prices of the locally grown product.
Czech-made medical marijuana was available in pharmacies until last January when it was sold for a price of about 100 Czech crowns (CZK) per gram. In May, cannabis imported from the Netherlands with a price of CZK 300 per gram replaced the Czech product.
In August, the State Institute for Drug Control (SUKL) announced that the Elkoplast Slusovice company met all the legal requirements and won the tender for deliveries of medical cannabis for the Czech market. They will supply pharmacies with Czech marijuana for the first half of 2018 for CZK 139 per gram.
Last Thursday, St. Anne’s Faculty Hospital in Brno began re-prescribing patients this sort of therapy, which helps with chronic pain and dealing with illnesses such as cancer, AIDS, or multiple sclerosis.
“Medical cannabis is available again. For patients it is about CZK 200, including the fact that our pharmacy processes it into capsules, ” Radovan Hřib, head of the Center for Pain Management of St. Anne’s University Hospital, said, according to online daily iDnes Brno.
Medical cannabis is still not approved as medicine by institutions such as The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, it remains legal in a number of countries. The Czech Republic is not an exception – the state legalized medical marijuana for patients with specific diseases in 2013.
