Legal status of hemp medications and medical prescription of hemp preparations in Switzerland

The official point of view of the Department of Internal Affairs (DFI) is that hemp preparations (cannabis) are strictly forbidden to doctors in Switzerland (except for actual trials executed by the DFI). Doctors wanting to prescribe hemp preparations - a preparation which is often the only efficient remedy - have been ignored and rejected by the Federal Office of Public Health (OFSP), which even warned of a legal action. It seems cannabis is a forbidden substance by law and unknown from the Interstate Public Substance Control (OICM). No doctor at all would have the right to prescribe it. A doctor which would prescribe a hemp preparation, without special permit from the OFSP, would break the law. The same would happen to the person (pharmacist) which, on the basis of such a prescription, would give it to the customer.

However, the OFSP is wrong ! Hemp, according to the law, is not a substance forbidden to doctors; hemp preparations were inscribed on the ABC list of the OICM until autumn 1998 - after that, the control was eliminated: any doctor, in Switzerland, which has his office under his control and is active, can purchase and dispense hemp preparations within the limits of his profession. The Narcotic federal law is a law which applies only to the production and marketing of pharmaceutical specialties. This law does not speak of the doctor’s freedom to prescribe narcotics. The current law lets people dedicated to the medical profession the right to buy narcotics if they practice their profession independently or under the responsibility of another practitioner. Since the health domain rests exclusively on the cantons (states); it follows that the Confederation has no competence to legislate, or even limit, a doctor’s right to prescribe the required hemp medications. However, no canton (state) has decreed an interdiction or a restriction to the medical usage of hemp, and all hold on to the legal principle which wants that each doctor established statewise can make usage of any drug required by his patients condition, hemp preparations included: certified doctors have the right to prescribe all medications, and use any therapeutic resources without any restriction. The (LStup - Swiss narcotics law) then lets the doctor decide for himself the usage or not of the hemp preparations justified by conforming to the usual prescriptions of the medical profession. This is confirmed in a letter, signed by the president of the accusation chamber and member of the supreme court of appeal of the federal court of justice (TF). The narcotics law (LStup) contains neither quantitative nor qualitative restrictions regarding the usage of hemp medications, except that the doctor is responsible for dispensing or prescribing hemp in needed amounts only. The confederation has no constitutional basis to legislate on the medication prescribed by doctors, but it can control the industries and commercial surfaces which produce hemp preparations and make commerce of them: the basis itself of the official control (LStup) is the obligation that people obtain a permit to produce hemp preparations or else commercialize hemp. Doctors being exempted from this control.

The Confederation has forbidden the commercial production and distribution for non-medical purposes, of certain narcotics such as opium to smoke, diacetylmorphine, certain hallucinogens such as lysegide (LSD25) as well as cannabic preparations. As such it is not possible to commercialize the above mentioned products, but the doctor is not concerned by this situation because a medical office is neither a factory nor a commercial/distribution house but the place where a liberal health profession is exerted. A doctor, in Switzerland, has no permit to ask to the Public Federal Health Office (OFSP) to prescribe a necessary medication based on a hemp preparation. A doctor who wishes to obtain the necessary hemp preparation can ask the pharmacy or a commercial outlet, or else prepare the substance himself (a"magistral" preparation). Doctors and the people responsible for a public drugstore or for a hospital, who practice under their own responsibility can without a permit obtain, hold, use, and dispense hemp preparations within the limits which justifies the exercise with conformity to the prescriptions within their profession. In Switzerland, registered doctors can work and obtain the narcotics they need at a public drugstore with a written order signed by themselves. Dispensary pharmacists can deliver hemp preparations on the basis of a written order from a practicing doctor.

The International Conventions
According to the Public Health Office (OFSP) the international conventions would forbid the medical prescription of hemp. However, this is false because the narcotics International conventions signed by Switzerland (international opium convention 1924; International convention relative to narcotics 1927; International convention to limit the production of narcotics 1931;Convention for the repression of illegal traffic 1936; unique convention on narcotics 1961; regulate only the unique traffic and commerce of narcotics but in no case its medical usage:. Recognizing that the medical usage of narcotics remains indispensible to relieve pain and wanted measures must be taken to ensure that narcotics would be available to this end. (opening of the 1961 convention...) Therefore there are no international convention ratified by Switzerland which prevents the medical use of hemp preparation prescribed by a doctor. Self-medication in Switzerland - The LStup is the law that regulates the commerce and the distribution of hemp preparation but not their production for private therapeutic usage: in Switzerland, each citizen can freely produce his own medications as long as it is for himself. The right to prepare for oneself your own drugs is part of the individual rights and there is no permit to ask, no restriction either for the composition of the remedy. Therefore anybody established in Switzerland can freely cultivate hemp in view to produce drugs of hemp type for his private usage. However, he has no right to sell it, that is to commercialize it.