Greece Legalises Marijuana for Medical Purposes

Greece becomes sixth EU country to legalise cannabis for medical purposes

  • Doctors will soon be able to prescribe cannabis for several medical uses
  • It’s yet to be seen if Greece will allow legalisation to extend to recreational use
  • Proposal is expected to boost Greece’s faltering economy

Cannabis has just been recognised as having medicinal properties by yet another European country. Greece is the latest EU country to take measures to allow its citizens the basic human right of choice in their medication.

“legalising cannabis will create $23 billion per year. That’s more than the sales of beer, wine and spirits combined!”

Announced last week by Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, doctors in Greece will soon be able to prescribe medicinal marijuana to patients with a variety of medicinal conditions, including; MS, chronic pain, PTSD, epilepsy and even for cancer treatments.

Speaking at a press conference, Tsipras said: “From now on, the country is turning its page, as Greece is now included in countries where the delivery of medical cannabis to patients in need is legal.”

Following the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Finland, Greece has become the 6th country in the EU to take steps towards allowing desperate patients a choice in which medication they take.

Details on how legalisation will proceed, such as how cannabis will be cultivated and distributed, are still to be clarified by the Greek Government.

Cannabis is currently a Table A drug in Greece, the equivalent of class A in the UK. The new proposal will downgrade cannabis to Table B, a classification which other ‘medicinal’ drugs are included in, such as methadone and opium.

Legalisation is expected to provide Greece’s economy a real boost; allowing the creation of a legal drug-industry as well as allowing the country the opportunity to import cannabis-based medications, such as Sativex and Epidoloex.

Legal medicinal cannabis is already proving to be a genuine stimulus to Canada’s economy, with Deloitte estimating that legalising cannabis will create $23 billion per year. That’s more than the sales of beer, wine and spirits combined!

It is yet to be seen whether Greece will go further to allow full-scale cannabis legislation, for recreational use as well as medical, joining Portugal, the only other European country to do so.

Do you think the UK is closer to legalising medicinal cannabis after this news? Countries all across the world are legalising, either for medicinal or fully, it is becoming more and more untenable for the British Government to use their argument that cannabis has no medicinal purposes when so many other Government are proving them wrong.