 Hello, this is Peter Szaroszy, the editor of the Drug Reporter website, and you are watching Drug Reporter Café, our online video series discussing drug policy developments in the world. Today, our guest is Zsindrik Woboryl, the national drug coordinator of the Czech Republic. We are going to discuss the recent news about a major cannabis reform happening in his country. Hello, Zsindrik, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for accepting our invitation. Hello, thank you for inviting me and how it's going to be useful, what I'm going to share. I'm sure it will be super useful for everybody in Europe because it's quite exciting news from the Czech Republic. So your government made a decision to make cannabis legal. Can you explain us why you decided so? So what are the major arguments behind making this reform? The government gave me the mandate to prepare the proposal. It's not yet agreed, but yes, we have an agreement across the coalition party to do it. The main argument is that the prohibition doesn't work. The main reason for prohibition is preventing harms in terms of health and security, especially in the area of cannabis, but not only. We have an established market, the market is growing, it's only illegal. We said that this makes no sense, neither from preventative side, neither from the side of the taxation, neither from the security part because the particular cannabis is one of the drugs that doesn't pose such a big risk to the society. So can you explain us the current situation, current laws? How do they regulate cannabis now? It's often written that the drug use is decriminalized in Czech Republic. How does that look like in reality? Maybe I should also add to your previous question that what I'm promising on one side, we will collect more taxation. On the other side, the preventative instruments, actually, we believe are going to be bigger and stronger. I mean, now in prohibition, you have only the possibility of police securing the facts and then prosecuting. But in the legal regulated, strictly regulated market, you have many other options. For example, how we're going to make sure that the products are not going to get in the hands of minors. We have other institutions and possibilities than only police. But anyway, the current law, we had since 1997, I think, decriminalization of position for personal use. And then it stopped. We came back for criminalizing it. And then some government study showed that it was a wrong move. And in 2010, we came back to the previous law. In terms of cannabis itself, we have 10 grams of position for personal use without prosecuting with criminal sanctions. But you still can get a fine. We have administrative law separate from the criminal law. Not all countries have this. Using is totally legal. But possession for personal use is not legal. But in small quantities, you get a fine, which is, for example, with heroin, 1.5 grams with methamphetamine, 1.5 grams with cannabis, 10 grams, or up to five plants in your garden. That proved to be OK. No major problem was happening. Actually, the study, as I said, showed that when we came back to the harsher way of punishing position for personal use, it showed that it didn't make sense. The government study was called PATH. And that showed that the number of people that prosecuted for minor offenses grew from one year to another very high, et cetera. It didn't make any sense. Though not all people agree on it, then sometimes the police would kind of bend this law. And sometimes even people with small quantity end up in front of the court. But usually, it's not the case. So a lot of people possess some small amount. And we have about 3,000 people every year that get some fines. In terms of problem, drug use, we are under or above the average of European Union, which is better than the rest of the world. So there is no disaster in problematic drug use. In terms of cannabis use, it went skyrocketing at some point. We were above all the charts of the rest of the countries in the EU. But it didn't correlate with problem drug use, especially injecting drug use of methamphetamine in this country. Heroin is very low problem here. We are rather more concerned with problem alcohol use among underage. That's our much bigger problem. Since as a national coordinator, I am in charge of tobacco, gambling, illegal drugs, and alcohol, this is much, much bigger concern. And this is how we see it here. Current government, I think that you didn't ask for that, but I think it's useful to say that, said that all addictive substances and gambling will be regulated according to their risks. So in tobacco, for example, if I, of course, you can imagine cannabis is one of it. But in tobacco, for example, we say we will support alternatives to cigarettes because there are less risky. So in fact, our policy and the coalition program and the government program says that our policy is going to be geared to minimizing harms and risks, not abstinence society, but harm reduction policy in all areas, including alcohol, including gambling. And of course, in the illegal drugs, that's why we say, OK, let's look at cannabis, but not only. Czech Republic also made it legal to use cannabis for medical purposes. What are your experiences with this regulation? Are there any lessons learned for regulating the recreational market? Yeah, we made it too strict. So only a few hundred patients actually have an access regular. We also gave it in the hands of the medicine regulators, which is complicated. So we need to do it differently. But we are talking about regulating markets. So there's going to be usual market scenario, but at the same time, there's going to be strong restrictions, stronger than tobacco. But this is my proposal at this moment. For a certain period of time, the limitations will be not number of licenses of producers. We will not limit the number of licenses, but they will have to go through a very strict process to secure that their products are going to be safer. They will need to show what is going to be the handling, so it doesn't lead to the black market. The distribution channel, let's say, is also going to be limited with licenses. We're also talking about registration of users. This moment, I know it's very strict, but we still are trying to resolve the problem with international conventions. And we believe that this is actually going to be an argument to say, yes, this is in line with conventions because people who need it will just ask for it by registering. And then there's going to be a usual thing, taxation, but it's going to be stricter than tobacco. And we will give it, this is my proposal, we will give it some period, let's say three years, with strict rules like people who want to use it have to register. And then we might stop the registration but for the beginning. The illegal production will be still criminalized in terms of production for personal growing. We will allow up to four or five plans. We'll see, we'll have the debate about it. We also want to allow cannabis social clubs. I am particularly in front of this solution. When I heard it first time, I didn't think much of it, but then I went to see it in Barcelona and I think it's quite clever if we do it well. I saw it also in Uruguay. It's a little bit different in Uruguay, but I think we need to allow this. It's a good alternative, like kind of nonprofit alternative to the usual business. But I'm guessing that like in Israel, for example, or in Uruguay, it will become a usual business. So if you look around in the world, there are now different international models of how to regulate cannabis. You mentioned Uruguay. So is the Uruguayan model that will be closest to the Czech model or is it the Canadian or how do you see which one is the best? Mix between Canadian and Uruguayan and of course, there's going to be some check points. But one important thing I must mention that Germany, Holland, Malta and Luxembourg said and Czech Republic, we said that we need to coordinate because we are in Schengen. So and I know that some partners in the EU are not happy with our decision. So we need to coordinate certain steps. We already have some analysis of 200 pages which we are translating in English and we will make it available, which has very concrete proposals and there is an impact assessment. So we see what can happen to the problem drug use, cannabis use, taxation, et cetera, et cetera. The video you are watching now is produced by the Rights Reporter Foundation, a non-profit organization, which is not supported by any governments or political parties. If you like this show, please support our work on our website, thedrugreporter.net. Make a donation today and become our supporting member. It makes a difference. Thank you. There are also concerns that these new regulations will be only dictated by the industry, by the companies. How do you make sure that also civil society and communities and professionals will be involved and included in this process of creating the regulation model? Actually, before we make the final proposal I'm planning to do certain rounds of debates. So first of all, we are putting together expert committee which will allow as much everybody in as possible, meaning I'm asking the cannabis industry, which is hemp industry and the industry of medical cannabis to get together and send some representative from their part. I'm of course asking the civil society to send representatives from their part. I need of course civil servants and politicians. So I want all sides industry and geos. I want the treatment and prevention part kind of the people who work with people with problem drug use in the debate. So it's going to be the expert committee. Then I would like to invite external experts to comment on our proposals. We want to invite people from US, from Canada, Uruguay, Thailand. Then we want to hold public hearing. People will be able on behalf of different institutions send in comments. And also we want to do round tables with public and only after all this, we want to send it to the parliament. We are expecting this process until March. So the first proposal I want to have ready and introduced to the media by the end of this year. So quickly in a few months. And then I want to do the rounds of the public hearing, which will allow business industries as well as people who are concerned with treatment of addictions as well as civil servants, police, judges, politicians, public. I believe this is going to work well. I'm not afraid of this public debate. I believe our society is mature enough. Your dimension, the issue of the international conventions and there are different kinds of proposals how to circumnavigate this international conventions. And for example, Bolivia just withdrew from the convention and then re-entered it with the reservation that they don't accept the coca-related parts. Do you think that could work in case of cannabis for like European Union member states? It could, but I'm much more concerned than cannabis without drugs as well. I think we need to see cannabis as some trial or I don't want to call it an experiment because I think prohibition is an experiment and it's really not working experiment and it's bringing a lot of atrocities, destabilizing of regions, countries, creating enormous organized crime. So prohibition is an experiment. This is not an experiment, but we want to set up some kind of a model that can work with other substances as well. I'm not saying that all substances should be the same, but definitely each family of drugs has certain version of the substance that is less risky and can be regulated. And I think we should learn from it as well as we are learning from legal drugs like tobacco and alcohol or certain medicines. We should also do the same with cannabis and then see how this works and start challenging the whole prohibition. So I think that the conventions either have to have amendments sooner or later or we have to start ignoring it. As far as I know that the pirate party in your country proposed to regulate psychedelics as well. What do you think about that proposal? Yeah, this is one of the areas we have just been going through public debate from some court case where two Polish young people has been in wives providing ayahuasca rituals and they ended up in prison then for eight and a half years. The man and the young lady, five and a half years on the 17th of October, there is the appeal court and the prosecutor is proposing higher punishment for the young woman, eight years imprisonment. So we say this is allowed in our law but we see this as a wrong outdated law which has to be reflected and we should change that. But so that's why we have a big debate at this moment but it's not only ayahuasca, of course it's psilocybin and it's other psychedelic substances. We need to have an option to use it in a medical setup which still we don't have. So we have to do this as a first step and another area is this kind of use under some control of ritual way. I'm not myself attracted to this. I never been to this ritual. I'm not attracted to this type of working with mine but I think this should not be in 21st century punished by imprisonment. So we need to change that definitely. But I'm also concerned with other stimulant drugs. I'm also concerned with like cocaine or amphetamines. I'm also concerned with opioid drugs. I think the whole prohibition is causing more and more problems. There are options how to stop it and how to use it differently. So we really need to rethink the whole concept of drug control. I'm not against drug control. I'm working in addiction field and I had a lot of patients or clients of mine who died as well as because of drug use but I think prohibition doesn't make sense as such. Strict control market, strict control accessibility may be not fully free market but accessibility is a better choice. The Czech Republic is currently the president has the presidency of the European Union. So that gives you some position to promote your views in the European level. But at the same time we see that some countries are really against such reforms such as I'm speaking from Hungary and we know that Hungary is opposing very actively all kind of reform. So how do you see the chances that you can do something in the European level? Is it possible to ally with other like-minded countries and do something jointly? Yeah, well our priorities for the European presidency, the priorities were put in and the drug policies in line with human rights. And we're talking in a very strong debate with the old 27 countries. We're not talking about regulated markets with cannabis but we talk in this presidency we're talking about accessibility of people who are diagnosed with mental health diagnosis diagnosis such as addiction, accessibility to substances and stopping punishing people when they're real. We're aiming at council conclusion. The council conclusion in a way is big because it's the heads of the governments of 27 countries but at the same time it's not an obligatory document. It's an instructive but not obligatory. I believe we can agree with 27 countries that human rights should be in the center of the drug policies that should not be put aside that some of the countries argue that security is more important but we argue that prohibition causes the bigger security problem and when you have people who are ill they have the right to have an access to their substances that they should have a right because it's their ill. So punishing anybody for use is against humane policies, let's say. At the same time we want to say by this document that European Union should be active on the UN level, not only changing the policies internally so I get questions from my colleagues from other countries. If I seriously think that we are breaking human rights in the EU and I keep giving them some case studies, yes we are breaking human rights often here and there and it can be the policy itself it can be a just behavior or interpretation of the policy and the laws but at the same time we know well that outside of the EU it's much more serious that there are countries who deny any substitution programs to people. There are countries that execute even mentally ill people for use. There are countries that execute people without trial, thousands of people without trial with the alibi that it's because of drugs. So all this should be addressed and an EU should be an ambassador of humane drugs policy, at least in these basic areas. And of course, another area what should be the center of the policy and drugs policy should it be security or should it be public health? Is the security compromised by the harsh policies or the harsh policies actually create bigger problems and if we concentrate rather on prevention and help would it actually work better? And we have all the data already in the European Union which I believe all 27 countries are more or less oriented rather on public health and health policy than the security but and we have the data comparing to the rest of the world that it worked. The European Union is actually much more comfortable with all this we don't have narco states among 27 countries but outside of European Union in Europe it's questionable. Thank you very much Andrew for being with us and sharing with us your insight about cannabis reform in the Czech Republic. Okay, thank you for inviting me. I hope what I was saying was in any way interesting and maybe useful. Thank you so much for being with us and thank you for those who are watching us online. Remember that Drug Reporter is a non-profit organization so please donate us on drugreporter.net. Thank you. Thank you.