Medicinal Cannabis Sativex and Bedrocan are now available in many European countries, and several have infrastructure in place to supply patients with medicinal cannabis. So which countries are moving with the times, and which are dragging their heels? Where are medicinal and recreational users most (and least) free to utilize their drug of choice? Let’s take a look at the facts.

Liberal drug policies have spread across Europe. But some early adopters are slipping behind.

On a cobbled street lined with tourist shops in central Prague, a darkened storefront advertises cannabis-flavoured beer and absinthe ice cream. Inside, chocolate bars featuring Bob Marley’s face are for sale alongside “mushroom cookies” and glass bongs. Nothing stronger is on offer. But in a country where the possession of drugs is mostly tolerated, it is not hard to find the real stuff elsewhere: dealers loiter in the city’s main square, and barmen sell cannabis under the counter.

According to a recent report by a joint EU watchdog, published on May 24, 2016; Europeans spend a colossal 24 billion euros ($26.8 billion) on illicit substances which, according to the report, fund crime syndicates and terrorism and“are one of the key threats to the security of the EU”.

The largest proportion of this expenditure goes to cannabis, which makes up 38% of the illegal drug market in Europe. That amounts to 9.3 billion euros ($10.4 billion). The majority of this cannabis is grown within European borders.

In July 2001, Portugal decriminalized all drugs,including marijuana, cocaine, and heroin.

The possession of small quantities of those drugs was shifted to a public-health — rather than criminal — issue.

And rather than getting arrested for a small amount, you get sent to a "dissuasion commission," where a doctor, lawyer, and social worker prescribe treatment or give you a fine.

US

The hardline drug policies adopted during the 1980s in the “war on drugs”, including mandatory minimum sentences for some drug-related crimes, has led to extremely high levels of incarceration in the country. The US has more than 2 million people in its jails – the second highest rate of incarceration per capita in the world – about half of whom were convicted of drugs-related crimes.

The war on drugs has failed, fuelling higher rates of infection and harming public health and human rights to such a degree that it's time to decriminalize non-violent minor drug offences, according to a new global report.

The authors of the Johns Hopkins-Lancet Commission on Public Health and International Drug Policy call for minor use, possession and petty use to be decriminalized following measurably worsened human health.

THERE HAS BEEN much talk in recent times about cannabis, namely plans to decriminalise or legalise it in certain jurisdictions.

A number of states in the US have decriminalised or legalised the drug and more are considering it.

In Colorado, for example, adults aged 21 or older can legally possess one ounce (28 grammes) of marijuana. Last year the state sold $996 million worth (about €876 million) of recreational and medical cannabis.

When it comes to legalizing marijuana, Canada isn’t sailing entirely into the unknown. A number of countries and U.S. states have experimented with loose pot policies (if not outright decriminalization), and these places offer potential models and lessons for Canada.

Toronto-based law firm O’Neill Moon Quedado LLP has put together an infographic comparing three countries known for their experimentation with drug decriminalization: The Netherlands, Portugal, and, most recently, the U.S.

On Friday several French agencies opened an investigation into a clinical drug trial that has hospitalized six men in the last week, leaving one permanently brain dead and three in critical condition, likely with permanent brain damage.

Six people have been hospitalised after a drug trial went terribly wrong at the Pontchaillou Hospital in Rennes in France. One has been declared brain-dead, and four others are in critical condition. Ninety participants in the trial have been asked to contact the hospital.

According to preliminary reports, the trial was of a drug aimed at inhibiting the brain enzyme that degrades endogenous cannabinoids, chemicals produced naturally by the brain that resemble the active compounds in cannabis.