A Czech government working group on psychoactive substances has proposed a sweeping package of restrictions that could roll back hemp policies in one of Europe’s most progressive markets, as regulators appear to be using concerns over synthetic hemp intoxicants to revisit broader industrial hemp reforms.
The recommendations appear to signal a radical shift in the Czech Republic under Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s ANO conservative movement, which returned to power late last year.
Although the Babiš coalition has emphasized law-and-order policies, it had so far preserved a cannabis framework that remains among the most liberal in Europe, allowing limited home cultivation and possession under a 1.0% THC threshold for industrial hemp.
The working group’s proposals stand out as a potentially significant shift, raising questions about whether concerns over intoxicating cannabinoids are driving a fundamental reassessment of the country’s long-standing hemp policies. The document repeatedly refers to concerns over hemp-derived intoxicants, synthetic cannabinoids and related public-health risks.
Industry response
Key stakeholder organizations were swift to criticize the government’s proposals.
“Every few months, we see the hemp sector moving one step forward and two steps back,” said Francesco Mirizzi, Managing Director of the European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA). “Such regulatory swings discourage investment, slow innovation and create uncertainty throughout the value chain.”
Hana Gabrielová, President of CzecHemp, a national industry cluster, said “It’s important to distinguish between natural industrial hemp from certified European varieties, and synthetically modified products that pose a real health risk.
“Moreover, natural hemp flowers — an essential source of cannabinoids for the human body — should not be pushed onto the black market,” she said.
1% THC at risk
The recommendations, contained in a policy paper prepared by the Interdepartmental Working Group on the Issue of Psychoactive Substances, would lower the country’s hemp THC limit from 1.0% back to 0.3%, eliminate exemptions for hemp extracts, consider restrictions on cannabinoid extraction, and potentially ban CBD and other cannabinoids in foods.
The proposals are not law, yet the document outlines specific legal changes, assigns responsibility to ministries and agencies, and establishes implementation timelines stretching into 2028.
The significance extends well beyond the cannabinoid sector. If adopted, several of the recommendations would directly affect hemp cultivation, breeding, processing and product development, reaching far beyond the intoxicating products that dominate the paper’s rationale.
The proposed restrictions could negatively impact the cosmetics industry, the veterinary sector, hemp research, and the legal production of non-psychoactive products from the hemp seed and hemp stalk.
HHC factor
The working group argues that the Czech Republic’s current framework has been exploited for the sale of potent intoxicating products and for exports that have drawn scrutiny from regulators elsewhere in Europe. It repeatedly cites enforcement challenges, youth access concerns and the emergence of new psychoactive substances as justification for tighter controls. The paper points specifically to hexahydrocannabinol (HHC).
EIHA’s Mirizzi said it is “particularly concerning that industrial hemp is increasingly paying the price for the actions of operators who exploit its reputation to market dangerous substances like HHC. By associating these products with hemp, they create confusion among consumers and policymakers alike, ultimately harming an agricultural crop that has enormous potential for food, fiber, construction materials and the wider bioeconomy.”
The Czech Republic became one of Europe’s largest and most visible HHC markets. Regulators spent the last two years trying to respond to HHC, semi-synthetic cannabinoids and other new-era psychoactive substances. The country also created a unique regulatory category for “psychomodulatory substances” to deal with products that did not fit traditional drug-control frameworks.
“The solution is not to roll back progressive hemp policies, but to enforce existing rules against illegal and non-compliant products. Industrial hemp should not become collateral damage in a debate largely driven by substances that are far removed from the traditional hemp plant,” Mirizzi said.
The concerns over HHC are not unique to the Czech Republic. Governments across Europe have struggled to respond to the popular synthetic intoxicant and similar compounds that emerged from hemp-derived CBD.
The United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs classified HHC as an internationally controlled substance in March 2025, placing it in Schedule II of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.
‘Precursor’ talk
The paper further suggests that Czech authorities should actively pursue efforts at the European level to classify CBD as a drug precursor. The recommendation comes amid an international debate over CBD’s role as a feedstock for HHC and other semi-synthetic cannabinoids, highlighted in a February 2026 notice from the International Narcotics Control Board.
Scientifically, there is little dispute that CBD can serve as a precursor to HHC and other semi-synthetic cannabinoids because it is routinely used as the starting material in chemical conversion processes that produce intoxicating compounds. In that narrow technical sense, CBD is indeed a precursor.
But CBD is not classified as a drug precursor under international drug-control conventions and is not scheduled as a narcotic or psychotropic substance. The debate is therefore not whether CBD can be converted into intoxicants, but whether that fact justifies regulating CBD itself as a precursor chemical.
Status in Europe
The Czech proposal reflects growing concern over HHC and related compounds while marking a shift away from the traditional international approach to CBD as a non-intoxicating cannabinoid.
But the recommendations also appear to run against the trend in European case law. In the landmark Kanavape ruling, the Court of Justice of the European Union held that CBD is not a narcotic and that member states may not block the free movement of hemp-derived products lawfully produced elsewhere in the EU. More recently, the court has been asked to weigh Italy’s restrictions on hemp flowers and CBD, a case widely viewed as another test of the EU’s established legal framework for industrial hemp products.
Regression
What makes the Czech proposals notable is the extent to which the recommended remedies reach into the entire hemp sector. The document’s most consequential proposal for industrial hemp would reverse the country’s 2022 decision to raise the THC threshold to 1.0%.
That reform was widely viewed as a milestone for European hemp. Supporters argued that the higher threshold better reflected agricultural realities, reduced the risk of crop destruction, expanded access to genetics and improved competitiveness for growers.
A return to 0.3% would move the Czech Republic back toward the standard followed by most European countries, and heighten concerns among farmers about plants exceeding the THC limit under extreme weather conditions.
Wider impact
The working group also recommends reconsidering exemptions for hemp extracts and tinctures, evaluating restrictions on cannabinoid extraction, and considering a blanket prohibition on foods containing CBD, cannabigerol (CBG) and cannabinol (CBN).
The Czech drug group’s proposal would target a sector that has already largely exhausted its growth prospects in Europe. The once-booming market for non-prescription CBD products has steadily retreated under the weight of novel food requirements, regulatory uncertainty and enforcement pressures, leaving pharmaceutical applications as the industry’s only viable long-term pathway.
Taken together, the recommendations would represent one of the most restrictive policy shifts proposed by any European government in recent years.
Missing context
While the document contains extensive discussion of psychoactive substances, enforcement mechanisms, product seizures, administrative powers and public-health protections, it is short on any meaningful assessment of how the proposed changes might affect industrial hemp businesses operating outside the intoxicating cannabinoid market.
There is little discussion of hemp farming, fiber production, grain markets, rural development, industrial processing, investment or the bioeconomy.
The paper also does not discuss how a lower THC threshold could affect breeding programs, cultivar selection or future investment in hemp agriculture. Nor does it assess how such changes could affect Czech growers’ competitiveness relative to producers operating under more permissive hemp frameworks outside the country.