Medical Cannabis Use in Ireland

Ireland is launching a five-year pilot program for the use of hemp for medical purposes. As part of the above project, opportunities are opening up for companies to legally supply medical products based on the therapeutic properties of hemp to the Irish market.  The implementation of this pilot program is an important milestone in the life of the country. Its goal is to facilitate access to the therapeutic properties of cannabis for medical reasons, when traditional treatments have shown their failure.

The pages of the profile electronic publication of Ukrainian hemp breeders regularly cover issues related to mechanisms for studying the therapeutic properties of cannabisa in different countries of the world. This material concerns the “launch” of a pilot program in Ireland, within the framework of which for a rather long period of time the therapeutic potential of hemp will be studied to form a base on the basis of which changes can be made to the current legislation of Ireland.

Ireland is launching a five-year pilot program for the use of hemp for medical purposes. As part of the above project, opportunities are opening up for companies to legally supply medical products based on the therapeutic properties of hemp to the Irish market.

Using the general trends of the European market for hemp-based medicinal products, cannabisa-based products will be sold in pharmacies in accordance with the requirements formulated in specially created regulatory acts for this purpose. In particular, these documents set forth a mechanism under which the cost of prescriptions for the purchase of appropriate medications made on the basis of the therapeutic properties of hemp is covered by the relevant government agency if the treatment is initiated by an employee specially trained for this type of activity, and previously used all traditional treatments have not been found effective in helping a particular patient. 

Registering people in need of this kind of treatment in the program does not automatically mean receiving compensation for using the appropriate prescription. At the moment, a small number of patients have received special state permission for the legal use of hemp for medical purposes. The new rules that are being prepared under this program will make access to cannabis-based medicines more systemic, and the decision on the possibility of using a specific hemp-based therapeutic product will be made not by a narrow number of specially trained staff, but by a group of medical consultants.

In an official statement on this subject, Irish Minister of Health Simon Harris said: “The implementation of this pilot program is an important milestone in the life of the country. Its goal is to facilitate access to the therapeutic properties of cannabis for medical reasons, when traditional treatments have shown their failure. ” The program for using cannabisa for medical purposes is similar to the one that is already being developed / working in countries such as Denmark or France and only after analyzing its results will any decisions be made to amend the current regulatory framework of the country.

Commentary of the Ukrainian Technical Hemp Association

The Irish Department of Health has issued the following guidelines for potential hemp-based suppliers and importers:

•  relevant medical products made using the therapeutic properties of hemp are referred to in the legislation as “certain controlled drugs”;

•  only products that are on the “defined controlled drug list” can be prescribed by medical consultants.

Medical consultants can prescribe treatment based on the therapeutic properties of hemp, if the "standard" treatment did not help in cases:

•  spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis;

•  irresistible nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy;

•  severe refractory (resistant to treatment) epilepsy.

The full amount of information on the use of therapeutic properties of hemp in Europe (including Ireland), as well as in the Middle East countries, is presented in the “ Analysis of the potential of the medical cannabis market on the European continent ” prepared by specialists of the national information and analytical platform Hempconsulting .