Denmark Announces Plan To Make Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Permanent

The government in Denmark recently announced its plans to make its medical cannabis pilot program permanent. The pilot program, first introduced in 2018, was originally designed to help federal lawmakers and regulators gather data and other research to be better suited to craft national laws and rules. The program has issued over 20,000 prescriptions since its launch.

“The scheme was introduced in 2018 to give selected patient groups, e.g. patients with multiple sclerosis or cancer, a legal opportunity to be prescribed medical cannabis as part of their treatment.” stated the Ministry of the Interior and Health (translated from Danish to English).

“We can see that many patients who are prescribed medical cannabis by their doctor seem to benefit from the treatment. This applies, for example, to cancer patients who may suffer from severe nausea after treatment with chemotherapy, or people with multiple sclerosis who may have severe pain,” Minister of the Interior and Health Sophie Løhde stated.

“If it’s up to the government, patients must continue to have a legal option to use medical cannabis, which is why we plan to make the scheme permanent. But now we have to see how the parties to the agreement stand.” the minister also stated.

Denmark’s medical cannabis pilot trial is slated to end in 2025. The proposal to make the medical cannabis pilot program permanent still needs final approval.

“On behalf of the government, Sophie Løhde has invited the agreement parties – SF, Liberal Alliance, Enhedslisten, Dansk Folkeparti and Alternativet – to negotiations on the trial scheme on medical cannabis.” the Ministry of the Interior and Health stated about the next steps.

According to a recent study conducted by researchers from Ukraine and France, and published by the U.S. National Institute of Health, 57 countries have adopted medical cannabis legalization measures.

A recent market analysis by Introspective Market Research projects that the legal global medical cannabis industry will be worth an estimated $91.065 billion by 2032. Introspective Market Research estimates that the emerging worldwide medical cannabis industry was worth over $13 billion in 2023.