Experts Call For HHC To Be Regulated Rather Than Banned

Calls for a blanket European ban on the relatively new, scarcely understood but widely available substance are growing, as are calls to learn the lessons of past prohibition efforts.

Just as it is doing with adult-use cannabis, the Czech Republic is swimming against the tide with HHC, with policy makers pushing for ‘sophisticated legislation’ to regulate HHC and other so-called ‘psychomodulating substances’.

HHC bans
Business of Cannabis reported last month that France was set to become the 11th European state to attempt to ban or heavily control the substance so far this year.

On June 13, France officially moved to amend its list of substances classified as narcotics, to include HHC, and its alternatives HHCP and HHCO.

It came just a day after Sweden’s public health agency similarly announced that HHC and HHCP will be classified as narcotics in the country from July 11, 2023.

This came after the substance was added to the list of substances under investigation in October, with another synthetic cannabinoid H4-CBD also being added in April.

Earlier in June, Hungary also notified the EU that it planned to add HHC, HHCO and HHCP to its list of narcotics, making it the 12th EU country to announce such measures.

Encapsulating the general attitudes towards HHC across the union, French MEP Aurélia Beigneux submitted a parliamentary question to the European Commission this month.

Ms Beigneux said that HHC was ‘currently flooding our continent’ due to how easy it was to access the drug, which was ‘benefitting from a legal limbo’ and ‘causing a great deal of concern among doctors’.

“Far from harmless, HHC is not without risks to consumers’ health: it has many adverse effects on the neurological, cardiovascular and digestive systems and can lead to anxiety and depression,” she continued.

In light of this, she questioned whether the EC planned ‘to ban this highly harmful substance from EU markets’ or to ‘run a prevention campaign for Member states’.

“More generally, how does it intend to combat the emergence and marketing of new synthetic drugs?”