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Netherlands: Dutch Cannabis Patients Facing 10-Month Supply Gap, Many With No Therapeutic Alternative Ben Stevens Business of Cannabis Wednesday 07 Oct 2026 Last week, Bedrocan announced that its key Dutch entities had taken emergency financial measures to avoid bankruptcy. The crisis arrives as roughly three-quarters of Bedrocan’s European production capacity falls out of the Dutch patient-supply chain, with no import authorisation granted for Danish-produced material to replace it in the interim. According to Bedrocan, the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) has itself acknowledged that its reserve stockpile will not bridge the period between September 2027, when the last usable Dutch-produced medicinal cannabis is set to expire, and July 1, 2028, when the amended Opium Act is targeted to take effect. “We have heard that patients in the Netherlands are seriously worried and are already stockpiling cannabis,” Bedrocan’s Head of Corporate & Marketing Femke Starrenburg told Business of Cannabis. Is supply for Dutch patients at risk? The company’s largest facility in Veendam has been under court-supervised administration since September 25, 2026, and its contract to supply the Dutch government via the BMC ended on January 1, 2026. Bedrocan says industrial orders to medicine developers can continue from the site, but under the current Opium Act, the company is legally barred from supplying pharmacies directly. As we reported last week, the VWS has agreed with Bedrocan that it build a stockpile of reserve products. According to Starrenburg, the ‘last batches have now been delivered’ to the government. “This cannabis has a shelf life of one year, which means that from September 2027 there will be no usable Dutch-produced cannabis left on the market.” Crucially, even the government has acknowledged supply gaps seem inevitable. Starrenburg added: “The Ministry of Health (VWS) itself has acknowledged that its stock will not be enough to bridge the period until the new law takes effect, which is now expected to be submitted to parliament in the second half of 2027, with entry into force targeted for 1 July 2028. We have heard that patients in the Netherlands are seriously worried and are already stockpiling cannabis.” As such, the dynamic threatening the future of Bedrocan in the Netherlands is also now directly impacting patients. Medical Cannabis Pioneer Bedrocan Fights to Avoid Bankruptcy in Home Market ‘The Dutch Bedrocan Medicine Is The Only Viable Option For Treating Many Children’s Epilepsy’ “The core of the problem is that, under the current Opium Act, we are not allowed to deliver directly to pharmacists, either in the Netherlands or abroad. Until the law is amended, the BMC remains the only route to the Dutch market.” This is especially concerning for what we estimate to be hundreds of Dutch patients suffering from life-threatening illnesses. With domestic supply trapped in a regulatory vice, this ten-month supply gap could be filled with imports. However, no import authorisation has yet been granted for Danish-produced Bedrocan material. The VWS is reportedly preparing to launch a European tender, inviting third-party producers to replace Bedrocan on home soil. Starrenburg warned: “Different varieties cannot simply be swapped for one another, and doctors and pharmacists need proper guidance when a patient has to switch. A patient who is stable on one specific variety cannot be moved to another product as if it were the same medicine.” Dutch biotech sector organisation Hollandbio told the parliamentary health committee in August 2026 that more than 7,000 Dutch patients currently hold prescriptions for medicinal cannabis, treated for conditions including chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, treatment-resistant epilepsy and palliative symptoms. Noting that for many of these patients, ‘there is no full therapeutic alternative’, it pulled no punches in stating that the shortage was ‘entirely self-created’ by the government. Will shortages impact other countries? The group operates three cultivation sites, including its Danish facility in Køge, operational commercially since 2024, and a wholly-owned Canadian site in Scarborough, alongside its Veendam site in the northern Netherlands. While it’s hard to pin a reliable figure to Bedrocan’s global product and patient footprint, which covers Germany, Italy, Finland, Poland, Australia and Israel, government figures suggest the loss of medical cannabis export income will cost it €8m a year. As the sole contracted cultivator for the Netherlands since 2003, exports from the country also help illustrate Bedrocan’s reach. Data from Germany’s BfArM show Germany imported 2,429 kg of medical cannabis from the Netherlands in 2025, or 1.2% of its 201,092 kg total. Before the explosion of Germany’s market, Bedrocan dominated the market, with Dutch imports totalling 3,724 kg, 17.9% of German imports in 2021. Provisional 2026 figures show 400 kg from the Netherlands so far. Bedrocan’s Danish facility is not impacted directly by the financial or legal issues dogging its Dutch counterpart, but at a capacity of around 2,100 kilograms per year, compared to Veendam’s 8 tonnes, Starrenburg warned that this is ‘not enough to supply the European market, let alone global demand’. “We really need our Dutch sites for that, but under the current Opium Act we cannot use them to supply pharmacists (and wholesalers) directly.” Its Danish facility, she confirmed, will continue to supply international markets with Bedrocan, Bedrocan forte, Bediol, Bedica and Bedrolina. Bedrolite, a CBD-oil prescribed for children with therapy-resistant Dravet syndrome or for patients (from 2 years old) with a therapy-resistant Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, is currently only produced in the Netherlands facility. https://businessofcannabis.com/dutch-cannabis-patients-facing-10-month-supply-gap-many-with-no-therapeutic-alternative/
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