Is cannabis legal in Austria?

The Austrian Narcotics Act (SMG) allows for the production, acquisition, processing, transport, possession, import, or export of narcotic substances for medical or scientific purposes. The SMG refers specifically to medical cannabis, and states that the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), is the only entity in Austria permitted to cultivate and possess cannabis for the production of medicinal products.

AGES grows several hundred kilograms of cannabis flower each year, which it exports to Germany, where it is processed into dronabinol, some or all of which is re-imported.

Semi-synthetic dronabinol preparations have been available to patients in Austria since 2004 as a magistral treatment in the form of oils or capsules, with 95% pure cannabis-extracted dronabinol available since 2015. Dronabinol prescriptions must be written by a senior physician, with a strict approval process in place.

Dronabinol treatment in Austria is most likely to be used for patients with spasticity, paralysis, multiple sclerosis and other nervous disorders, for the relief of chronic pain that does not respond to any other therapy (cancer, diseases of the nervous system), or loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting in cancer and AIDS.