Press release, Prague, 20 March 2025 – The Rational Regulation association responds to two recent reports that reveal the illogic of cannabis prohibition and confirm the need to change the relevant legislation through the forthcoming reform of the Criminal Code.
In the first half of February, Czech Anti Drug Police reported through its spokesperson that Czech police officers assisted in a total of 170 cases of people overdosing on drugs last year, and in 77 cases the overdose victim died. In almost 50 per cent of the cases, people died after consuming drugs, with meth being the second most common cause of death.
“What the report no longer mentions is the fact that illicit cannabis does not figure once in this sad statistic. By contrast, legal alcohol was the leading cause of death for more than 2,400 people in 2022, according to the latest data from the National Centre for Drugs and Addictions, 505 of whom died directly after acute intoxication,” points out Pavel Kubů, MD, of the Rational Regulation Association.
At the end of February, the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA – formerly EMCDDA) published the results of a European online survey on drugs, which was conducted last year in 31 European countries and involved more than 66 000 Europeans. As it turned out, cannabis is the most commonly used illegal substance (59%; 62% in the Czech Republic), followed by cocaine (30%; 35% in the Czech Republic) and ecstasy (29%; 32% in the Czech Republic).
One of the trends highlighted by EUDA experts is the increase in so-called polysubstance use, where, for example, only 4% of cocaine users did not use other drugs along with cocaine. By contrast, the least polysubstance-using drug, according to the survey, is cannabis. In terms of reasons for use, more than 60% of cannabis users reported ‘stress reduction’ or ‘relaxation’.
“If you ask recreational cannabis users about their reasons for use, they most often cite stress and pain relief, relaxation, improved sleep quality or substituting for alcohol and other substances. For all these purposes, products that do not even require a prescription are commonly available in pharmacies,” says medical anthropologist Tomáš Ryška.
“Given the safety profile of cannabis and the positive historical and clinical experience of its use, there is no rational reason why cannabis should not be part of this commonly available offer to the public. As last year’s study by the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Economics in Prague shows, the current prohibition status is less socially and economically beneficial compared to regulated sales,” says Ryška.
According to the National Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Addictions, a total of 4,496 respondents (2,312 men and 2,123 women) entered the Czech part of the questionnaire. “From the data obtained, we consider it an alarming finding that there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of users of semi-synthetic cannabinoids such as HHC and others in the Czech Republic, partly at the expense of the much less risky, yet still illegal, plant-derived cannabis,” points out Robert Veverka, chairman of Rational Regulation. “While 14 percent of respondents in Europe said they had consumed semi-synthetic cannabinoids in the last month, twenty percent more in the Czech Republic said they had, which is clearly a consequence of the prohibition of the plant.”
The Rational Regulation Association, z.s. consists of representatives of the Czech Cannabis Cluster CzecHemp, the Safe Cannabis Association and Legalizace.cz. The aim of the association is to convince the political representation of the need to change the cannabis legislation towards its loosening, decriminalization and regulation.
Contact:
Robert Veverka, President of the Rational Regulation Association
E-mail: info@racionalniregulace.cz
phone: 773 691 561