Medical cannabis advocates are continuing to push back against draft legislation in Germany that would eliminate statutory health insurance reimbursements for medical cannabis flowers. The German Hemp Association (DHV) and the German Association of Pharmaceutical Cannabinoid Companies (BPC) both issued recent press releases opposing the Statutory Health Insurance Contribution Rate Stabilization Act.

“The draft legislation is being rushed through. It was only last Friday that the bill was introduced to the Bundestag for its first reading. A hearing and final vote on the bill are scheduled for next week in the Bundestag! However, the first round in the Bundesrat (Federal Council) saw many significant proposed amendments. If the Bundestag passes the law in its current form, the Bundesrat might call for renegotiation and refer the matter to the mediation committee. However, the Bundesrat has so far raised no objections to the discontinuation of reimbursement for cannabis flowers.” DHV wrote in its press release (translated from German to English).

“It is therefore hoped that the Bundestag’s Health Committee will remove cannabis flowers from the package of measures. We once again urge all affected patients to write to their representatives using our email campaign!” DHV added.

BPC conducted an analysis of data used in crafting the Statutory Health Insurance Contribution Rate Stabilization Act and is calling into question the validity of some of the assumptions made by the measure’s authors and supporters.

“The analysis shows that the savings calculated by the legislature, initially €130 million in 2027 and rising to €180 million in 2030, are based on an untenable premise. While politicians assume a widespread shift of patients from cannabis flowers to extracts, the data proves the opposite: The actual monthly switching rate between the two forms of administration is only 0.5 percent.” BPC wrote about their analysis.

“The proposal is an intervention in the benefits catalog based on an empirically unsupported assumption,” said Antonia Menzel, Chair of the Board of the BPC. “The assumed substitution of 10 percent is incompatible with actual prescribing patterns in the statutory health insurance system. Even with physicians having free choice between flowers and extracts, patients do not, in practice, switch; a medically sensible shift of the magnitude on which the cost-saving calculation is based cannot be derived from the data. This is not a sound basis for a health policy decision of this magnitude.”

DHV has also questioned the touted ‘economic savings’ that supporters of the Statutory Health Insurance Contribution Rate Stabilization Act claim the measure would yield.

“Extracts are more expensive than flowers.” DHV wrote in its news release. “Based on the actual THC content, to which prescriptions are typically standardized, cannabis flowers are the most cost-effective cannabis medication. The same prescribed amount of THC therefore costs health insurers more in the form of extracts or pure dronabinol preparations than in the form of cannabis flowers.”

Medical cannabis supporters in Germany are encouraged to continue to contact their lawmakers and urge them to make the sensible, compassionate move and oppose the elimination of statutory health insurance reimbursements for medical cannabis flowers.