As of last Friday, laws relating to legalizing medical cannabis in Ukraine came into full effect.
In late June last year, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy strongly backed legalizing medical cannabis in his country, stating Ukraine should make cannabis-based medicines legal for all those who need them, accompanied by appropriate scientific research and local, regulated production.
The country’s unicameral parliament supported Bill 7457 at its first reading in July 2023. Then it its second reading in late December, the Bill was passed with 248 representatives voting in favor. It then headed back to the President’s desk for his signature. While the bill was signed by the President in February, it wasn’t to take effect until six months later – i.e. now.
“Cannabis, its resin, extracts and tinctures are excluded from the list of particularly dangerous substances,” states the Ministry of Health (translated).
The Ministry expects products will be available to patients in the form of oral drops, hard capsules, and interestingly – “dental pastes”.
That this has all happened so quickly and during a time of war is remarkable. But the war has helped move things along as cannabis has been used to treat or manage conditions such as PTSD. And given what the country has been going through, PTSD is on the increase.
The BBC reported in 2023 that in 2022, Ukraine’s health ministry estimated 57% of Ukrainians were at risk of developing PTSD as a result of the invasion. Bill 7457 explicitly mentions “oncological diseases” (translated) and post-traumatic stress disorders acquired as a result of war being qualifying conditions.
Also on the cannabis front, Ukraine’s industrial hemp industry is still moving forward in spite of the chaos wreaked by ongoing hostilities. We mentioned back in 2023 plans to turn an old flax plant in the village of Rizhanni into a hemp cultivation and processing facility. That still appears to be going ahead.
Prior to prohibition, Ukraine had a long association with hemp, going back centuries. According to UkrainianHemp, the plant made its first appearance in the territory way back in the 16th century. During the period 1906-1916, there was 250,000 hectares of hemp production in what is the territory of Ukraine.
There’s a great summary of the history of industrial hemp in Ukraine here.
