With increasing numbers of countries embracing cannabis, the European Union is launching a toolkit to help national policy-makers frame their adult-use legislation.
In doing so, it is aligning with the continent’s changing cannabis landscape as Germany, the Netherlands, Malta, Czechia, Luxembourg and non-EU neighbour Switzerland, all develop their own recreational cannabis infrastructure.
It is also in tune with an acknowledgement by United Nations bodies that punitive prohibition has failed and needs to be replaced with a harm-reduction approach to drug control.
Created by the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), the toolkit is to be known as Cannapol, and is designed to deliver an ‘evidence-based’ approach to continental cannabis liberalisation.
EUDA says its creation is the result of ‘changing public opinion’ and a focus on a harm reduction approach to drug use.
The development has been welcomed by Michael Greif, Managing Director of the German Cannabis Business Association (BvCW).
He told Business of Cannabis: “The Cannapol project marks a careful step into the right direction for European cannabis regulation.
“While drug policy is a sensitive matter, traditionally reserved to the national regulatory autonomy of Member States, the EU is supporting national efforts through data collection, capacity-building, best-practice identification, as well as co-operation and information exchanges.
“The Cannapol project thereby provides a great opportunity to shape evidence-based policy-making in collaboration between regulators, researchers and other market and civil society participants.”
He did go on to say that the EUDA’s limited competence in the wider EU bureaucracy means Cannapol could be viewed as a ‘promising box-ticking exercise’
He added: “It does represent a component of evidence-based policy making which is in line with accelerating regulatory developments at the EU level.”
EUDA has so far given little indication of the shape of the evolving project. In its response to Business of Cannabis, it stated that it will examine the pros and cons of both ‘home-grown’ and ‘retail markets’.
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