The list of qualifying conditions for Ukraine’s medical cannabis program has been released, with a couple of glaring omissions given the country is at war.
In June 2023, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy threw his support behind legalizing medical cannabis. The country’s unicameral parliament supported a related bill at its first reading the following month, then it was passed after a second reading in December. The bill wasn’t signed by the President until February 2024 and came into effect in August.
But there is still some regulatory red tape to put in place. Among it, the Ministry of Health needed to approve a list of conditions for which a patient can be prescribed cannabis-based medication by a doctor, and the forms in which it could be taken.
This has now been addressed with the Ministry publishing details on prescription and use last week.
Among the conditions are chronic or neuropathic pain associated with cancer, MS, shingles neuralgia and cerebral palsy. Also covered are chemotherapy related nausea and vomiting, Parkinson’s disease, drug resistant epilepsy, weight loss associated with HIV and more. Other conditions may be added to the list as new research evidence becomes available.
Notable omissions from the conditions list at this stage are anxiety and PTSD, which is curious given the ongoing impacts of the war in Ukraine. It was the increasing prevalence of PTSD that probably helped legislation get over the line so rapidly. In a study of 6993 Ukrainian refugees, prevalence of PTSD and chronic PTSD was 29.4 %. Direct and indirect exposure to war was related to PTSD but not CPTSD.
Under Ukraine’s program, the use of cannabis will only be permitted when other drugs have been tried and those either do not achieve the desired outcome or cause side- effects that are poorly tolerated by the patient. As for dosages and method of administration, these will be determined by a patient’s doctor. The Ministry says (translated) taking a cannabis medicine should be ceased if the desired therapeutic effect is not obtained within 4-12 weeks.
The Ministry also stressed that the recreational (non-medical) use of cannabis remains prohibited – and it doesn’t appear that will change any time soon.
It’s not clear yet when medicines will be available.
