Last year a film came out about the medical cannabis issue in the Czech Republic - where industrial hemp is legal - and I hear it is very worth watching, though hard to get. So anyway, here is a review - from www.ceskapozice.cz
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© Rok Konopí
Czech firms could be cleared to grow and process
medical marijuana, says a working group preparing to allow the drug on
prescription
The
use of cannabis in the treatment of serious illnesses is the subject of a new
Czech feature-length documentary titled “Rok Konopí” (“Year of Mari©huana”),
which is premiered at Prague's Bio Oko cinema on Thursday. Legislation currently
before parliament should lead to a green light for the medical use of the drug
here although what form it will take is as yet unclear.
Independent
producer Jan Hrnčíř decided to make the film when, soon after himself being
diagnosed with a tumor in his right eye, he found inspiration at a seminar on
the healing powers of hemp oil run by Rick Simpson, a Czech Republic-based
Canadian marijuana advocate and electrician.
Hrnčíř signed up director
Petr Slabý, who says one of the aims of the documentary is to spur a public
debate on an issue that has to a certain extent been taboo.
“The film isn’t intended to
be propagandistic or tendentious – it's just an effort to examine the subject,
and its possibilities and limits,” Slabý told Czech Position. “We want in a way
to de-demonize the drug and to show people that it isn't just something for pot
heads and rastas. Its potential lies elsewhere.”
© YouTube – the official trailer, with English
subtitles
Father Sun
Among the interviewees in
“Year of Mari©huana” are the aforementioned Simpson; politicians including
former health ministers David Rath and Tomáš Julínek; Professor Lumír Ondřej
Hanuš, a pioneering Czech chemist working in the field since the late 1960s;
Dušan Dvořák, a psychotherapist who has faced legal action for cultivating and
distributing marijuana; “healer” Libuše “Bushka” Bryndová; and the strangely
named clinical psychologist and musician Pjér la Šé'z (also one of the people
behind the film), whose talk of shamen, “Mother Nature,” and “Father Sun” may
grate with those of a less mystical disposition.
© Rok Konopí
Professor Lumír Ondřej Hanuš, a pioneering Czech
chemist working in the field since the late 1960s, testifies before a
Parliamentary committee.
The
documentary perhaps works best in depicting the experiences of four Czechs, two
with cancer, two with multiple sclerosis, who have – at the risk of criminal
prosecution – used hemp-based products to alleviate their symptoms.
One
of the protagonists, Philip Polívka, was diagnosed with MS when he was in his
late 20s. Despite the fact he had previously been resolutely anti-drugs, his
father, himself fatally ill at the time, urged him to try cannabis as an
alternative treatment.
“I
use cannabis, or cannabinoids, because I feel they're helping me, somehow,”
Polívka, now 40 and a father of two, told Czech Position. “In the most concrete
sense it loosens up the spasticity in my legs, something I was using a different
chemical for earlier on. But other chemicals have side effects that aren't
always positive.” ‘In
those days it would be a psychological, trippy experience. ... [Now] It’s like
cold mineral water flowing through my nerves, or something.’
Polívka,
a translator who grew up in Canada, was a recreational smoker of grass in his
youth. “In those days it would be a psychological, trippy experience. Nowadays I
don't really have that any longer, because my tolerance has got to such a level
that to have an actual psychological reaction would be kind of difficult for
me,” he says. “But I feel it in my body. It's like cold mineral water flowing
through my nerves, or something.”
Looking to Israel
For
a contrast with the situation in the Czech Republic, “Year of Mari©huana”
follows Professor Hanuš to Israel, where he has in the past worked closely with
Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, the scientist who first identified THC, the principal
psychoactive constituent of the cannabis plant.
© Rok Konopí
Philip Polívka has been using cannabis products to
alleviate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis since his late
twenties
The
Israelis have an advanced medical marijuana program, although it is strictly
limited to particular patients, such as those suffering from nausea induced by
chemotherapy or in the later stages of AIDS.
“But
even in Israel you could see that, though people get it officially, they’re
still kind of ashamed. They’re afraid that others could regard them as junkies,”
says Slabý. “That’s absurd, though, because the drugs they take otherwise, that
they get from pharmacies, are genuine drugs. In comparison, hemp isn’t a drug at
all – it’s a regular plant and a natural substance.”
A
Czech Parliament working group headed by the chairwoman of the Chamber of
Deputies, Miroslava Němcová, a strong supporter of legalization, has in recent
months been preparing legislation that would allow for the legal use of hemp
products for medical purposes.
© Rok Konopí
Czech moves to join the handful of European
counties and US states where medical marijuana already permitted have been
boosted by input from various branches of the Czech Medical Chamber
(ČLK)
However,
during a lower house session in March there was disagreement over some points,
such as whether such products should be produced by licensed companies here or
only imported from other countries.
A
reworked bill will go before deputies in a second reading during a Chamber of
Deputies meeting due to begin next week. The legislation is expected to get the
green light, although it may only acquire its final form during that
session.
Slabý
believes that legal medical hemp oil (the pill form is another possibility being
discussed) will become available on prescription. But he is concerned that it
will prove too expensive for the very people who need it most, such as those on
disability pensions. Indeed, there have been estimates that a monthly supply
could cost as much as 10,000 crowns (roughly equivalent to half an average Czech
take-home paycheck).‘There’s
a question mark over whether it will be covered by medical
insurance.’
“There’s
a question mark over whether it will be covered by medical insurance,” says the
director. “I know doctors say it should be carried out carefully, with precise
dosages measured, and so on. But for some illnesses, like multiple sclerosis, I
think patients wouldn’t actually need to go to pharmacies – they could just grow
their own in their gardens.”
It
should be pointed out that the Czech Republic has relatively liberal drug laws
in general, with possession of set amounts of illicit drugs for personal use
permitted. The limit for marijuana is 15 grams, which is equivalent to around
five plants.
—
Ian Willoughby is a Prague-based freelance
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