European Parliament Votes On Resolution Supporting Medical Marijuana: Here's What It Means

Earlier this week, the European Parliament passed a resolution recommending nations in the European Union revise their laws around medical marijuana to better support research and patient access. While non-binding, the resolution does seek to incentivize these revisions, similar to the World Health Organization’s recommendation of a rescheduling of cannabis and several of its key components under international drug treaties.

The resolution called for:

“Member States to address the regulatory, financial and cultural barriers which weigh on scientific research into the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes and on research into cannabis in general; further calls on the Commission and the Member States to define the conditions required to enable creditable, independent scientific research based on a wide range of material to be conducted into the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes.”

What This Means

For Joaquin Rodriguez of GenX Biosciences, this approval has major implications for the global cannabis industry.

“It gives global access to cannabis medicine and opens doors for more research,” said Rodriguez. He believes the resolution could increase global tourism, “in addition to helping remove the global stigma of cannabis being demonized for decades under prohibition... With this action, Europe is well on its way to lift the restrictive policies that have limited the growth of the medical cannabis medical cannabis marketplace.”

Arnaud Dumas de Rauly, co-CEO and co-founder of The Blinc Group, said the resolution represents an important milestone for medical cannabis, and not only for Europe.

“More importantly, we now have a path towards safe and regulated products while defining proper product standards. The next logical step would be a cannabis products directive to solve the regulation disparities across EU member states,” he told Benzinga.

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