Ukraine’s Health Minister Viktor Liashko announced on June 7 in a Facebook post that the government advanced a medical cannabis bill for approval, even as the country is in the thick of war. Cabinet of Ministers approved the draft and sent it to Ukraine’s Parliament for final approval.

“We understand the negative consequences of the war on the mental health camp,” Liashko wrote. “We understand the number of people who will require medical treatment in the last breath.”

Kyiv PostReports indicate that the draft 2021 bill has been reworked. The government is now ready to legalize medical cannabis. “And we understand that there is no time for a check,” he added.

“Cannabis drugs are not ‘competitors’ to drugs, and measures to regulate their circulation are completely different. Medical cannabis contains cannabidiol, which has no pronounced psychoactive effect, so it’s not suitable for recreational use,“ said Liashko.

It would establish strict regulations for medical marijuana production and sales, including authorizations, licenses, and permits to grow and use it. It would also provide a medical cannabis tracking system in order to provide information for all the stages of products’ circulation.

“To that, at the same time, we were prepared by the legislator for the preparation of a new cycle of production of preparations based on cannabis in Ukraine: from the development of that processing to full production,” Liashko added.

On June 7, Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers approved a draft bill “on regulating the circulation of cannabis plants for medical, industrial purposes, scientific and scientific-technical activities to create the conditions for expanding the access of patients to the necessary treatment of cancer and post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from war.”

It would allow medical care to be expanded to include cannabis, and also encourage the research of this plant. It will allow for patients with more than 50 qualifying conditions to have access to medical cannabis, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), HIV/Cedarapids, neurological diseases and neuropathic pain. Epilepsy, glaucoma, psoriasis, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis are also on the list.

Medical cannabis will be available via prescriptions or electronic prescriptions, but the Health Minister acknowledged how cannabis can’t be regulated the exact same way as pills. He dispelled some myths regarding CBD.

Liashko appeared to be comparing people who reject medical cannabis with people who deny the many benefits of yoga, which are widely accepted and proven scientifically. It’s possible he has some point.

“Communication campaigns against drug abuse in cannabis have been shown to reject the faces on the basis of yoga and cannabis, which are in illegal practice, with the method of ignoring the value of yoga as a medical science and discrediting the very idea of ​​yoga medicine.”

The bill would establish a central body to determine how much THC cannabis has through lab tests that are conducted by institutions and enterprises.

Kira Rudik is a Ukraine Congress Member tweetedIn 2019, the Holos Party spearheaded the national medical cannabis movement.

Now, the bill must be passed by 226 votes in Ukraine’s Parliament. A medical cannabis draft bill—bill No. 5596—failed to be approved by the Ukrainian Parliament on July 13, 2021, and was sent back for revisions.

Activists from the Patients of Ukraine and other groups rallied in front of the Ukrainian Parliament to demand the approval of Bill No. 5596, which regulates the use of medicinal cannabis in Ukraine. It was approved in Kyiv on 13 July 2021. Although the bill was approved by MPs, it was not considered in Parliament.