Cannabis legalisation bill blocked in Rada

Stefanishyna holding printouts with edits. Photo: Facebook Olga Stefanishyna

The VR deputies introduced almost 900 amendments to the bill on the legalisation of medical cannabis in Ukraine, thus effectively blocking it, reports "Hromadske".

MP Olga Stefanishyna, a member of the Committee on the Nation Health, Medical Care and Health Insurance, said that it would take several days just to consider all the amendments.

According to her, MPs submitted more than 880 amendments to the bill, including 226 from the “Batkivschyna”, more than 200 from the “ES” and about 300 from the “Servant of the People”.

In addition, according to Stefanishyna, “Batkivshchyna” said at the conciliation council that they would put all their amendments on the record. "This is what usually happens when a faction wants to block a law," she explained.

Stefanishyna also said that some deputies submitted a very large number of amendments that are "classified as spam".

"That is, one amendment is broken into three, then half of the proposal is postponed, etc. - in order to just file a large number of amendments. They make no sense, they just take up time," the MP said.

She noted that the text of the bill on medical cannabis is technically ready to go to the floor. But because of so many amendments, the Parliament will be busy working on this document alone for 2-3 days. And now there are draft laws that need to be considered before the end of the year, which is what MPs are doing.

"Nobody wants to go for it now. It (the bill - Ed.) is on the agenda in fact but at the very end, in the impassable part. There is an intention to consider it. But “Batkivshchyna” has now become the reason for putting it on the impassable list," Stefanishyna said.

According to her, the adoption of a special procedure that will reduce the number of edits is now being considered, or the Rada will listen to all the edits within two or three days.

As earlier reported, on 13 July 2023, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine voted to legalise the use of cannabis for medical purposes.

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