Czech Cannabis Cultivation
Further controversy surrounds the domestic cultivation of the country’s medical cannabis stock. A company called Elkoplast Slušovice previously won the bid to be the sole provider of the nation’s tender – cultivating a single strain with nearly 20% THC and very little CBD. However, the Czech State Institute for Drug Control (SUKL) then refused to buy two out of the three ordered batches (of 23 pounds of dried cannabis each) due to ‘insufficient certification’. A decision that is set to be legally contested by the company’s CEO, Ladislav Krajča.
Despite this previous pitfall, the SUKL has put out a new tender, which still aims for just one producer to supply only 90 pounds of medical cannabis in the next four years.
There is, however, one silver lining for the Czech cannabis industry… Hemp is regulated as an industrial commodity and therefore has more relaxed limits on cultivation and processing than the neighbouring countries. As a result, Czech Republic is currently a world-leader in cannabis-infused products such as cosmetics and dietary supplements. Numerous Czech products on sale in the UK, Spain, Germany and many other European markets. With the popularity of hemp based cosmetics on the rise, there could be a bright future ahead for the cannabis industry in the Czech Republic.