The results of tens of thousands of peer-reviewed studies and countless personal patient testimonies all demonstrate that cannabis is an effective medicine. Every suffering patient should have safe access to medical cannabis. However, prohibition policies and stigma continue to hinder safe access in many parts of the world.

When a country doesn’t have a proper medical cannabis access system, patients will continue to seek out cannabis from the unregulated market. A case in point can be found in the Netherlands, where the vast majority of patients who use medical cannabis do so without a doctor’s prescription.

“In 2024, 3.3% of adults in the Netherlands used one or more cannabis or CBD products for medicinal purposes or self-care. This equates to approximately 460,000 people. Nearly a quarter of adults who used cannabis recreationally in the past year also reported using cannabis or CBD products for medicinal purposes or self-care.” reported researchers affiliated with the Trimbos Institute (translated from Dutch to English).

“Notably, the majority of adults who used cannabis for medicinal purposes did so without a doctor’s prescription: 93.4% used exclusively without a prescription, 3.1% used both with and without a prescription, and 3.5% used exclusively with a doctor’s prescription.” the researchers also wrote in a recent analysis.

It is no secret that cannabis is widely available in the Netherlands, and that has been the case for many years. In addition to unregulated sales via outlets like coffee shops, several jurisdictions in the Netherlands are home to legal regional adult-use cannabis commerce pilot trials.

Unfortunately, medicinal cannabis is highly regulated in the Netherlands and is only available with a doctor’s prescription from pharmacies. All legal medical cannabis is cultivated under the strict supervision of the Office for Medicinal Cannabis. Suffering patients in the Netherlands deserve to have a more modernized approach to medical cannabis access.