The Czech Republic will no longer press ahead with a fully regulated legal cannabis market, according to a draft bill on cannabis reform presented by the country’s coalition government on Wednesday.
The Pirate Party, which has been pushing for the complete legalisation of cannabis in the country, suggested that the draft bill was a ‘compromise’ with plans to negotiate additions at a later date.
The bill includes decriminalising personal cultivation, allowing cannabis social clubs and plans for taxation, but falls short of the original ambitious plans to create a fully regulated commercial market set out in April last year.
“We have agreed on the self-cultivation of a limited number of plants. This will mean decriminalisation for adults who grow a small amount of cannabis for their own use,” the national coordinator for drug policy Jindřich Vobořil said.
Vobořil also stated that the party wishes to follow the approach of countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Malta, all of whom have taken steps to loosen laws around adult cannabis consumption in recent years.
While the bill is a climbdown from proposals set out in 2023, the Pirate Party stated they aim to extend the bill to allow for a pilot testing of a regulated market as set out in their original plans.
“It has become clear that, just like the prohibition of alcohol in the USA in the last century, the current approach of criminalising cannabis does not work,” Pirate Party MP Klára Kocmanová said.
