Greece legalised cannabis for medical use last year, and in March this year it lifted a ban on growing and producing it, in the hope of drawing foreign investment into the sector.
Reuters reports that the law permitting Greeks to grow cannabis has come as a relief to patients, who say that lifting the ban on using it was only half the battle, as long as it remained hard to get.
The number seeking medicinal cannabis has grown “by thousands,” said Konstantinos Syros, who heads the Organisation for Patients Supporting Medicinal Use of Cannabis and lives off a disability pension.
“They call me desperately asking for the medicine and the medicine does not exist.”
Imports of medicinal cannabis products were given the green light last year, but complicated regulations made it difficult to arrange.
Syros added he has been arrested three times for growing cannabis in his home. Now, he has begun growing hemp in a field near his home in Xylokastro, outside Athens, as part of a collective which makes products including creams and oils. He is planning soon to produce medicinal cannabis himself.
Read more at ekathimerini.com
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