State agency for cultivation and trade of cannabis planned

State Agency should regulate cultivation and trade of cannabis for pain therapy
Marijuana is also used as a medicine in many countries. Although some patients in Germany have the opportunity to purchase and consume cannabis for medical purposes, access is often not easy for them. According to a newspaper report, a state agency will regulate the cultivation and trade of medicinal hemp in the future.
Marijuana for medical purposes
Marijuana has long been used for medical purposes in many countries around the world, including cancer and pain patients, people living with HIV and people with multiple sclerosis (MS) and the disease of Crohn's disease. For German patients, it has been difficult or even impossible to legally obtain marijuana. To date, the Federal Opium Agency has only granted a few hundred patients nationwide permission to purchase medicinal hemp from the pharmacy. Although 90 percent of Germans expressed their support for easier access to cannabis for patients in a summer survey, there is still little movement in politics on this issue. Recently, a cannabis referendum was denied in Bavaria. A bit of what is happening but apparently yet: According to a newspaper report, a government cannabis agency in the future to regulate the cultivation and trade of cannabis for pain therapy in Germany.

(Image: olyas8 / fotolia.com)

State agency as hemp salesman
As the "Welt am Sonntag" reports, this is the result of a bill of the Federal Ministry of Health, which is for examination in the Chancellery. Accordingly, the overall coordination at the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) should be located. The self-cultivation by patients should continue to be prohibited according to the information. "The cannabis agency spells out the anticipated need for medical hemp in accordance with the provisions of public procurement law, awards contracts for the supply of medicinal hemp to growers in competitive procedures and concludes civil supply or service contracts with them," according to the newspaper. "The cannabis agency then sells the medicinal hemp specifically to manufacturers of cannabis medicines, wholesalers and pharmacies."

Cannabis on prescription
The state agency will then also set the price that health insurance companies have to pay for each drug given to patients. In the coming months, Parliament should decide on a corresponding amendment to the Narcotics Act. At the beginning of the year, the Federal Government Drugs Commissioner, Marlene Mortler (CSU), also recommended that cannabis should be given to chronically ill pain patients by prescription. And Federal Health Minister Hermann Gröhe (CDU) had announced in February, to enable people with hashish by prescription this year. The costs should be taken over by the health insurance companies. Greens and leftists have made corresponding demands for some time. The newly announced new regulation is less explosive from the point of view of the Union than the authorization of cannabis for self-cultivation by the affected pain patients. According to Welt am Sonntag, the Union fears that the quantity and quality of home-grown cannabis could easily escape state control. (Ad)