Warsaw – The Lower Chamber of the Polish Parliament approved a law legalizing the use of limited quantities of marijuana for medical purposes. Recreational use of this drug does not allow legal regulation. 440 deputies voted in the 460-member house, only two were against and one abstained, media reported.
The text of the law provides that cannabis-based medicines can be prepared by pharmacies from imported ingredients on medical prescription. The possibility of growing marijuana for medical purposes in Poland, as the original proposal envisaged, rejects MPs.
In order to the new normative act to enter into force, it needs to be approved in the Senate as well. Then the President will have to sign it.
Piotr Marzec-Liroy, a former member of the Sejm for the Kukiz’15 movement, presented the original proposal in February last year, which is the third strongest party in the lower house after the 2015 elections. Today he is an independent Member.
The debate on the medical use of cannabis in Poland intensified two years ago after a medically supervised release of a doctor of a large children’s hospital in Warsaw. The doctor gave marijuana experimentally to child patients without informing the hospital management.
The case was reminded last year by left-wing deputy Tomasz Kalita, who suffered brain cancer. He died in January this year.