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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Czech Rep: Supreme Court says growing cannabis still illegal
Prague Daily Monitor
Thursday 22 Feb 2007 The Supreme Court says the cannabis plant is considered a narcotic under the law on addictive substances and that growing it is illegal. Growing cannabis, the plant which produces marijuana is produced, is still illegal without the relevant permit, the Supreme Court (NS) said yesterday. The court was reacting to an interpretation by Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) which said that one can grow cannabis legally on the basis of a NS ruling. Since the cannabis plant itself is considered a narcotic under the law on addictive substances, growing it is illegal, the NS said. The NS only said that it was impossible to identify automatically the growing of cannabis with the production of a drug. As a result, courts must assess the circumstances of every case apart, the NS said. MfD published the case of Mojmir Miklica and Hana Ticha from Hradec Kralove region, east Bohemia. They had been sentenced for growing 500 cannabis plants, but appealed the verdict, claiming that they used cannabis for medical reasons. The NS cancelled the verdict and returned it to the Hradec Kralove court, which must collect more evidence. MfD wrote that this meant that a criminal act was only committed by those who dry the plants and start making a drug from them. However, the NS said that this interpretation was wrong. "The NS certainly did not say that growing marijuana in itself is legal. Marijuana, or to put it exactly the plant Cannabis sativa, is in itself an addictive substance under the law on narcotics," the court said. If there is no permit, its growing is still illegal, the NS added. The NS only said in the ruling in question that as growing the plant in itself did not amount to producing marijuana, the grower was not automatically considered as having committed the crime of illegal drugs production and possession. The growing of cannabis can still be a criminal act especially if the plant is grown for someone else, the NS said. Even if someone grows cannabis for his own needs, he can be criminally prosecuted provided the amount of the plant is "less than a small amount," the NS said. One can only speak about the production of marihuana at the moment when the plant is harvested and processed into the "state ready for consumption [of marijuana] or for the gaining of the psychotropic substance THC." The court should consider as production even the growing of the plant designed for the production of marijuana if the drug eventually were not produced, the NS said. http://www.praguemonitor.com/en/29/czech_national_news/1779/
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