Luxembourg could be the next European country to legalise cannabis for medical purposes after their Prime Minister made comments seeming to promise reform.
Prime Minister Xavier Bettel declared that cannabis can be used for medical reasons in “exceptional circumstances,” such as for patients suffering from cancer, MS, following a meeting with Luxembourg’s Minister of Health last Friday.
Bettel justified the decision to legalise medical cannabis using positive examples of other European countries who have already legalised, such as the Netherlands, Italy and Germany.
While the Minister of Health, Lydia Mutsch, has been tasked with overseeing the framework for how legal medical cannabis access will work, preliminary limitations have already been laid out.
Bettel informed his council that “there will be strict prescribing conditions,” so that medical cannabis products could only be available in pharmacies within hospitals.
Cannabis will only be able to be prescribed by immunologists, oncologists, and internists.
– Moves further towards legalising medical marijuana –
Luxembourg, following a broader EU and global trend, took another step on Tuesday towards legalising medical marijuana by announcing plans for a two-year pilot project.
The plan, which must be approved by parliament, would allow authorities to determine how many people in the tiny duchy will use medical marijuana and under what conditions.
Health minister Lydia Mutsch told a press conference that the government aims to limit marijuana use to people with cancer, multiple sclerosis and other serious illnesses.
“This must be an exception in a controlled and secure setting,” Mutsch said as she introduced the proposed legislative changes.
The authority to prescribe such treatment “should be limited to certain specialists like oncologists, neurologists and internists,” the minister added.
Health and social security ministers also plan to discuss terms and conditions for reimbursing patients who use the drug.
Mutsch intends to present amendments to the draft governing medicinal use of drugs by year-end.
The draft will then go before parliament for debate and a vote. The pilot project would start after the new law is adopted, probably in 2018.
