Slovenian Lawmakers File Bill To Legalize Marijuana For Adults As Separate Medical Cannabis Measure Passes

Lawmakers in Slovenia have introduced new legislation to legalize recreational cannabis—allowing possession, home cultivation and sharing among adults in the country.

The adult-use measure comes as a lawmakers continue to advance a separate medical marijuana legalization proposal despite recent pushback from the National Council.

“And we have it! Almost,” Sara Žibrat, a member of the National Assembly, Slovenia’s lawmaking body, said in a translated social media post earlier this month when announcing the new bill.

Žibrat, a member of the country’s Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda) party, said the proposal is also backed by the political party The Left (Levica).

The first legislative presentations on the new bill are set for this fall, the lawmaker explained, after which the measure would receive “three hearings, three opportunities to change proposals and three votes” in order to pass.

In June of last year, voters in Slovenia approved a pair of advisory ballot measures in favor of home cultivation for medical patients as well as non-commercial recreational legalization.

A question asking whether patients should be able to cultivate the plant for personal use earned 67 percent support from voters. Another, asking whether all adults should be able to legally grow and possess the substance, got 52 percent support.

The results were not, however, legally binding.

The newly filed measure would allow adult residents to grow up to four cannabis plants at their homes, with no more than six plants per household, according to reports from Slovenian media.

Adults could carry up to seven grams of cured cannabis flower in public places, with up to 150 grams per person in their home. No more than 300 grams could be possessed among a given household.

Adults could share marijuana among themselves within the proposed possession limits without, though payment would be prohibited. Commercial sales of the drug would also remain illegal.

The legislation would set a per se THC limit for drivers of three nanograms per milliliter of blood, with increasing penalties for a blood level of between three to five nanograms and above five nanograms.

Penalties would start at 300 euros for the lowest-level offense, which would rise to 600 euros at the three-to-five nanogram threshold and 1,200 euros above five nanograms. A driver would also accumulate driving penalty points, which could lead to the loss of their license.

If a driver with the lowest amount of THC, three nanograms, did not show any signs of psychomotor impairment, however, they reportedly would not be subject to any penalties.

Employers, meanwhile, would be prohibited from routinely testing workers for THC use under the bill, according to the International Cannabis Business Conference, which analyzed the legislation.

“Analysis shows that cannabis is no more dangerous than other already legalized drugs, such as tobacco and alcohol,” Žibrat said in a media statement, according to the news outlet 24UR. She argued the reform would lead to safer cannabis use by removing stigma around the drug.

“We are implementing the will of the voters,” she added, according to the Austrian newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten.

As for the separate medical marijuana proposal, introduced in April by the same two political parties that are backing the adult-use bill, the measure would legalize cannabis extracts, plants and resin by removing the substances from Slovenia’s list of illegal drugs, according to local reports. THC, however, would remain prohibited unless used specifically for medical or scientific reasons.

“Our goal is to protect patients and cannabis users from unverified products on the black market, enable uninterrupted medical cannabis supply to patients and address current legal shortcomings in the field of cannabis use for medical and scientific purposes,” the Freedom Movement said in a statement about the proposal at the time.

Earlier this month, Slovenia’s National Council vetoed that legislation in a 20–9 vote, 24UR reported, but shortly thereafter lawmakers in the National Assembly reaffirmed the measure in a 49–11 vote.

“It is certainly a step in the right direction,” Žibrat said at the time, according to a translation, “and I am convinced that we can continue to improve it, already in the next mandate, when our institutions also realize that cannabis is not nonsense, but a right of patients.”

Under the proposal, the Public Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices would be responsible for licensing and regulating the production and trade of medical marijuana. The Ministry of Health, meanwhile, would issue permits around marijuana used specifically for scientific purposes.

The new medical legislation would require that marijuana meet the same production and distribution regulations as conventional medicines, according to reports, meaning that cannabis would be prescribed and dispensed much like any other prescription drug.

Left lawmaker Nataša Sukić said at the time that patients with multiple sclerosis, severe forms of epilepsy and various forms of cancer would be among those who would qualify for the program.

Currently the use of some cannabinoid drugs is legal in Slovenia, but medical marijuana itself is not.

Introduction of the Slovenian legalization measures among the latest examples of a push for marijuana reform making its way through Europe.

In Germany earlier this year, for example, following a pivotal national election, parties cooperating to form a new coalition government announced they’ll conduct an “open-ended evaluation” of the country’s new marijuana legalization law.

Reform advocates had been watching closely to see how the centrist coalition would handle the legalization law, which officially took effect last April. Conservative lawmakers who won the most votes in the election have expressed their desire to roll back the law, but they were not able to get another party to agree to that plan as part of the new coalition.

Beginning in April of last year, the legalization of possession and home cultivation for adults took effect in Germany. Cannabis social clubs also began to open, providing members with legal access to marijuana products.

German officials last year also convened an international conference where leaders were invited to share their experiences with legalizing and regulating marijuana, with a focus on public health and mitigating the illicit market.

Representatives from Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Switzerland were invited by German Commissioner for Addiction and Drug Issues Burkhard Blienert to the meeting in Berlin.

The countries that participated in the ministerial have varying cannabis policies. Malta, for example, became the first European country to enact cannabis legalization in 2021. Luxembourg followed suit, with the reform officially taking effect in 2023.

Government officials from several countries, including the U.S., also met in Germany in 2023 to discuss international marijuana policy issues as the host nation worked to enact legalization.

A group of German lawmakers, as well as Blienert, separately  visited the U.S. and toured California cannabis businesses  in 2022 to inform their country’s approach to legalization.

The visit came after top officials from Germany, Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands held their first-of-its-kind meeting to discuss plans and challenges associated with recreational marijuana legalization in 2022.

Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.