Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union supports the petition “Legislative regulation of cannabis for the science and healthcare – protect constitutional rights of the citizens”, which was officially registered at the site of the Parliament yesterday, on January 30, 2019.

At the moment in Ukraine over two million citizens are deprived of the access to effective treatment.

Among them:

• more than 20 thousand children with pharmacologically resistant forms of epilepsy;
• hundred thousands of people with cancer;
• over hundred thousand of palliative patients;
  • ten thousands of war veterans with post-trauma stress disorder.
  All of them suffer every day from impossibility to use effective medicines. Such tortures shall be stopped and there is real opportunity for that – to provide for our fellow citizen access to effective treatment with the medicines, which are used by millions of ill people in civilized countries. Key components of such medicines are phyto-cannabinoids – active components contained in hemp.

Use of the medicines on the basis of hemp is regulated by the laws of Canada, USA, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Great Britain, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, Poland and others. All over the world the rehabilitation of the hemp is taking place, because there (unlike in Ukraine) scientific job on studying the therapeutic qualities of this plant are ongoing. At the same time, all cannabinoids in Ukraine are in the list of substances which cannot be used in healthcare and scientific researches. Current legislation envisages the criminal prosecution of the scientists for research of the therapeutic value of cannabinoids, and doctors which dared to ease the condition of ill persons, and patients for exercising the human rights to access to effective treatment.

All the undersigned demand:

To regulate, in the legislation, the access of the patients to medicines from cannabis in treatment of the chronic pain, epilepsy, anorexia, post traumatic syndrome, immunologic diseases, arthritis and rheumatism, asthma, Alzheimer disease, Parkinson disease, Huntington chorea, herpes, ulcers, loss of weight during AIDS, diabetic neuropathy, different forms of sclerosis and a lot of other serious diseases.

In a way of amending the legislation:

а) ensure respecting human rights to access and use of effective drugs including those produced on the basis of hemp;

1. b) to create proper conditions for full scale use of the plant in the healthcare and scientific activities, also with the aim of development, clinical research and state registration of the effective drugs or clinical protocols, which envisage use of the products containing cannabinoids;
2. c) regulate the issue of legal circulation (purchase, storage, transportation) of the products containing cannabinoids, including by the ill persons, which use them exclusively for treatment purposes as prescribed by a doctor with no sales purposes;

It is necessary to regulate the legislation which contradicts the scientific truth. We demand to ease the suffering of the patients and protect the right of the citizens to decent life and access to modern and effective treatment.

We demand to STOP THE PAIN!

Signatories:

Ukrainian Association of Medical Cannabis NGO
Charitable Patients’ Fund “Blood Drop”
NGO “Drugs Control”
Charitable Fund “Children with Hemophilia”
Charitable Fund “Patients of Ukraine”
Charitable Organization “100% Life”
All-Ukrainian Charitable organization “Time for Life Plus”
Charitable Fund “STOP Cancer”

All-Ukrainian Charitable Organization “Joy of Movement” (child rheumatoid arthritis)
NGO “Glimmer of Hope”
NGO “All-Ukrainian Association of Crystal People”
All-Ukrainian NGO “Rear Immune Diseases”
NGO “Association of People with Torsion Dystonia”
NGO “Mental Health”
NGO “Drugs Control”
NGO “Afina. Women Against Cancer”

NGO “Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union”