Cannabis-in-brief: The state of cannabis in Europe, Albania moves to legalise medical and Australia’s push for personal use

Each Friday we bring you the headlines you might have missed from the week just gone.

The top lines this week: The EU Drug Report highlights the prevalence of cannabis use across Europe, officials in Albania take a step closer to legalising medical cannabis and MPs in Australia launch a coordinated push for personal use. 

Elsewhere, some experts in the Czech Republic are swimming against the tide, calling for HHC to be regulated rather than outright prohibited and a new study disputes long standing claims that cannabis is a ‘gateway’ drug. 

Read more below.

Albania moves closer to legalising medicinal and industrial cannabis 

Officials in Albania have approved a draft bill which would regulate the production and export of medicinal and industrial cannabis.

On Friday 16 June, the Council of Ministers voted to approve a draft bill to legalise the production of cannabis for medicinal and industrial purposes.

The country’s Health Minister, Ogerta Manastirliu told the media in a statement that the purpose of the law is to regulate and ‘guarantee the process of control and supervision of cultivation, production, processing and export of the cannabis, its by-products and final products’.

EU cannabis seizures high 10-year high 

At the end of last week the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) published its annual European Drug Report giving an overview of the key trends in drug use across the EU. 

According to the findings, cannabis remains the most commonly used illicit drug in Europe, with around 8% (22.6 million) of European adults (aged 15–64 years) estimated to have consumed it in the last year. Around 1.3% of adults in the EU (3.7 million people) are estimated to be daily or almost daily users.

Seizures of cannabis have also reached their highest level in a decade, with herbal cannabis making up a significant proportion of all drug seizures in the EU. 

Australia’s Legalise Cannabis Party launches bill for personal use

The Legalise Cannabis Party has introduced identical bills in three states as its MPs across Australia launch a coordinated push to legalise the personal use of cannabis.

The Regulation of Personal Adult Use of Cannabis Bill 2023 will seek to legalise the personal consumption of cannabis in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia.

Under the bill, adults will be permitted to “responsibly possess and grow small quantities of cannabis at home”. The bill will also allow sharing between adults and carers to grow on behalf of others, the party said.

Legislation has been modelled, in part, on regulations introduced in the Australian Capital Territory in 2020.

Experts call for HHC to be regulated, rather than banned 

States across Europe are continuing to ban hexahydrocannabinol (HHC) at pace, as politicians warn that the substance is ‘currently flooding our continent’. But some experts are calling for stricter regulations, rather than a blanket ban.

Just as it is doing with adult-use cannabis, the Czech Republic is swimming against the tide with HHC, with policy makers pushing for ‘sophisticated legislation’ to regulate HHC and other so-called ‘psychomodulating substances’.

Doctors, researchers, economists and lawyers from both the Czech Republic and the US gathered in Prague’s historic Brožík Town Hall for an open discussion around HHC, and the current approach to regulation.

Martin Kuchař, head of the Laboratory of Forensic Analysis of Biologically Active Substances at VŠCHT, told the conference he believed HHC had an ‘interesting potential’ and ‘deserves further investigation’.

Alcohol, not cannabis, is the real ‘gateway’ drug, finds study 

A first-of-its-kind study seems to dispute claims that cannabis is a ‘gateway’ drug, finding that young people ‘overwhelmingly’ try alcohol first, followed by tobacco.

Researchers analysed data from over 8,000 young people collected through the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health study, which recorded whether they had ever used alcohol, cannabis, or tobacco and the age at which they first tried them.

The results showed that trying cannabis first, before alcohol or tobacco, was ‘relatively uncommon’ (6%). Only 9% of individuals who said they had ever used cannabis reported initiating cannabis before alcohol and tobacco. In addition, those who tried cannabis first were less likely to have substance misuse issues when compared to those who tried other substances at the same time.

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• Albania takes step closer to legalising medical cannabis cultivation
• What is HHC? Its effects, safety and legal status in Europe
• Experts call for HHC to be regulated rather than banned
• Fresh moves to reform Ireland’s cannabis laws a welcome ‘first step’
• Ireland to debate decriminalising cannabis for personal use