Prohibition of other psychoactive substances
In a recent article, we informed you about the amendment to the Government Regulation on the lists of addictive substances, which banned HHC, HHC-O and THCP, as well as the Psychomodulation Act, which was approved by the Chamber of Deputies on 3 May 2024. At the same time, another draft amendment to the Government Regulation on the lists of addictive substances, which would ban additional substances, is currently on the table.
On 6 March 2024, an amendment to Government Regulation No. 463/2013 Coll., on the lists of addictive substances (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulation") came into force, by which the substances HHC, HHC-O and THCP were added to List No. 4 of psychotropic substances. These substances are now classified as addictive substances within the meaning of Act No. 167/1998 Coll., on Addictive Substances and on Amendments to Certain Other Acts (hereinafter referred to as the "Addictive Substances Act"). We informed you about this ban and the consequences associated with it in our article of 16 February 2024 HERE.
Currently, a draft of another amendment to the Regulation is being prepared for approval by the Government by the Ministry of Health, which would add 7 more psychoactive substances to the list No. 4 of psychotropic substances, namely HHCP, HHC (HHC-C6), HHC-C8, THCH (THC-H6), THCB (THC-C4). These are the substances that have come to the forefront of the cannabinoid market as a result of the prohibition of HHC and other substances.
If these substances are included in the list of psychotropic substances within the meaning of the Addictive Substances Act, it will not be possible to freely dispose of these substances and products containing these substances, both in terms of sale or distribution and possession. The Law on Addictive Substances allows the use of these substances and products containing them only for limited research, scientific and very limited therapeutic purposes as defined in the handling permit issued by the Ministry of Health.
At the same time, the draft amendment extends the note to Schedule 4 of the Psychotropic Substances List to include under the Psychotropic Substances List the ethers and esters of the psychotropic substances listed therein in all cases where they may exist. According to the Explanatory Memorandum, this extension responds to the dangerous acetate forms of these substances, where, particularly in the case of 'vaping', dangerous substances can be produced which seriously endanger the health of users. The inclusion of ethers and esters of psychotropic substances should thus cover a relatively large number of new substances with psychoactive effects on the human body which may not be explicitly listed in Schedule 4 of the Psychotropic Substances Directive.
The Ministry of Health is proposing a ban on the above substances without any time limit, unlike the ban on HHC and other substances, for which the ban should last until the end of this year or until the adoption of the Psychomodulants Act.
The comment procedure on this draft amendment was closed in mid-April this year. Therefore, the draft amendment must now be adapted to the results of the comment procedure and will then be sent to the Government for discussion and possible approval. Given the state of the approval process, it is not yet possible to determine whether and, if so, when the ban on further substances should come into force.
If approved, this amendment to the Regulation will need to be sent to the European Commission for notification in accordance with Directive (EU) 2015/1535 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 September 2015 on the procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical regulations and regulations for information society services, as such national regulation will have an impact on the internal market of the European Union. Given that the European Commission has approved an amendment to the Regulation effective from 6 March 2024, it can be assumed that consent will also be given in this case.
As we informed you in a previous article (HERE), on 3/5/2024 the Law on Psychomodulatory Substances was approved in the 3rd reading by the Chamber of Deputies, which regulates the sale and other disposal of psychomodulatory substances, which most likely should include HHC and kratom. However, despite this fact, it can be expected that these newly proposed substances will be included in the list of addictive substances, respectively. According to the Explanatory Memorandum, the Ministry of Health was led to prepare this proposal mainly by the fact that traders in the Czech Republic had already announced during the discussion of the previous draft amendment to the Regulation that they would replace products with HHC, HHC-O and THCP with even more dangerous substances; (b) the Ministry of Health had already stated in the explanatory memorandum that, unlike HHC or kratom, they were proposing the permanent inclusion of these substances on the list of psychotropic substances, thus demonstrating a difference in view of these groups of substances.