While the Czech Republic is introducing new measures to regulate psychoactive substances according to risk, the government is also considering harsher restrictions for safer alternatives to smoking. Filip Blaha of the Institute of Liberal Studies joins Joanna Junak to explain the proposals.
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Joanna Junak: Hello and welcome! I'm Joanna Junak and this is GFN News on GFN.tv. Regulations surrounding psychoactive substances are increasingly being developed to address public health concerns. The Czech Republic recently introduced new regulations on kratom, low THC hemp and flavoured e-cigarettes, aiming to protect youth from potential risks while allowing for responsible adult use. Joining us today to discuss these new regulations is Filip Blacha from the Institute of Liberal Studies. Filip is an expert in cannabis-related addiction and serves as an advisor on cannabis legalization in the Czech Republic. This is part one of our interview with Filip. Part two will air on Friday. Hello Filip, thank you for joining us today. First, can you tell us what you do and what your area of interest is?
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Filip Blaha: Yes, so my name is Filip Blaha. I work as an analyst for the Institute of Liberal Studies, one of the biggest checking things and my main area of focus lies in the addictions. More specifically, I'm working on the current legislation concerning the harm reductions reform in tobacco police and also legalization of cannabis in Czech Republic. And I'm also working for the regulation impact analysis of the proposed ban on or regulation of the tobacco alternatives.
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Joanna Junak: Let's talk now about the Czech Republic and its regulations on kratom, low THC hemp and flavored e-cigarettes. But first, can you please explain to us what kratom and low THC hemp are?
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Filip Blaha: Yeah, so basically the entry to the market of kratom products and low THC hemp has been using the kind of legal loophole in the Czech legislation because normally the so far addictive substances are under strict regulation. This concerns the normal cannabis with the high concentration of THC which usually is banned in most of the countries in the world and recently some reformed legislation have been in work. But the low THC we can see as a kind of cannabis, which has the low concentration of THC. So it's not under the legislation and it's sold more likely to put it very clearly in Czech Republic legislation as a collecting item. So the retailers just use this loophole to sell it as a collector item. And we are mostly talking about many different products in that area, which falls under the low THC. It can be THC hemp with low concentration of THC, but it can also be CBD hemp with some certain concentration of THC. So there are very many different products. Concerning Kratom, they use the same legal loophole and they were selling it as a collecting item again. And that brought a lot of risks with itself because it was sold basically everywhere. So every person, even children under 18 age could buy the product and retailers didn't need to implant any warnings or any education materials on the product. So because of that, that product spread very, very, very passed among the adults. And there are basically two extremes concerning Kratom in Czech Republic. One claims that it's almost the same hard drug as coke, which is not based on any scientific evidence. However, the second extreme is based that some retailers were selling the Kratom just with the description as some normal herbal tea. So the new legislation of the psychoactive substances is trying to correct those mistakes, both concerning the Derivates of hemp, HHC+, we can talk about many other alphabetic derivatives and also kratom. So that's something that the new legislation is trying to fix.
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Joanna Junak: Okay, let's go back to the regulations. What are the main goals behind the new rules on these products in the country?
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Filip Blaha: Yeah, as I briefly mentioned before, the main goal of the regulation is kind of make it those products into the proper legal framework, which will create some certainty for both the retailers and consumers, because so far we've been in pretty shadow blind spot for any law and legislation. So now the new legislation is trying to bring some certainty to the market for both the producers, retailers and also consumers. What it means, more specifically, there are very strict rules for where and to whom you can sell Kratom and any derivatives or low THC hemp. You won't be able to sell it in the kind of candy products because that's very convenient for the children or any kind of similar, some products associated with toys. It also cannot be sold in the grocery stores and There will be strict age regulation and also the online shopping will be very, very strictly regulated with the two-phase checking of the age. And this aims to help kind of establish some strict rules on the market and prevent the consumption among the adults and children, but also allow the producers and retailers to keep their business stable. And concerning the electronic cigarettes, I believe the kind of situation is very different. Recently, our government has approved the so-called consolidation package, which established the consumption taxes on all tobacco alternatives, which means also nicotine pouches and others. And it's been kind of against what they said before in the field of addiction, because they were claiming that they will promote the harm reduction alternatives that are less harming than the cigarettes. And recently, there were some news from the Ministry of Health Care that they are preparing the bill that would basically ban all flavored substances in the electronic cigarettes, which would mean very, very likely that the harm reduction alternative of the e-cigarettes would be less harmful likely to be searched by the addict people on tobacco because the flavors were one of the main perks of the this alternative but however because of the strong pressure of the experts and also some government and members of parliament this ban has been postponed to perhaps uncertain time