Editor convicted of promoting THC-induced “toxicomania,” could face jail time.
The criminal case that may force the closing of the Czech Republic’s pioneering cannabis magazine is — at least in the eyes of its targeted editor — disturbingly redolent of the bad old days of authoritarian rule.
Robert Veverka, publisher and editor-in-chief of Legalizace magazine, heads an advocacy organization of the same name. He’s a visible and indeed respectable figure in many ways. In 2018, he was elected to the board of the Prague 2 municipal district, and he serves as an advisor on the Prague City Council’s Commission for Drug Policy. Veverka has also run for the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Czech parliament, with the Pirate Party on a legalization platform. In 2020, he ran for the Senate, and came in third among eight candidates. In the middle of the campaign, charges were brought against him.
On Nov. 3, 2021, Veverka was convicted by a district court of inciting “toxicomania.” The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years, and the judge has informally announced a one-year term. However, the sentence is not to be imposed while the case is on appeal. Veverka says he could likely get probation in lieu of prison time if he did not pursue his appeal. But accepting probation would mean ceasing to publish Legalizace.
The case hinges on “instructions and advice about how to cultivate” cannabis that appeared in the pages of Legalizace, which are said to have “resulted in inspiring at least one individual” to procure seeds through an ad in the magazine and grow several plants — “thereby producing the prohibited substance Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).”
SEEDS OF CHANGE
Understanding this strange case requires a look back at the career of Robert Veverka over the years of relative liberalization for cannabis in the Czech Republic.
Veverka says he first became interested in cannabis at the age of 16 in 1992, when he read Jack Herer’s hemp manifesto The Emperor Wears No Clothes.
That same year, incidentally, the pioneering Czech chemist Lumír Hanuš, working with Raphael Mechoulam’s team at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, first described the structure of anandamide, a key endogenous cannabinoid neurotransmitter. Although it is not widely known, during the 1950s and 1960s Czech scientists were at the forefront of medical cannabis research, which included groundbreaking studies on the structure of THC and the antibacterial and antibiotic properties of the plant.
As a young man, Veverka visited the Netherlands, and — like so many others — had his mind blown by the ultra-tolerant atmosphere. “You could go and buy it like bread,” he recalled in a Skype interview with Project CBD. “I thought it was so awesome.”
Back home in Prague, he helped organize the first pro-legalization demos in 2007, which eventually evolved into the Czech contingent of the Global Marijuana March, held each May.
This pressure began to pay off, and 2010 saw a reform of the Czech criminal code, in which 10 grams or up to five adult plants became an “administrative” rather than criminal offense. But Veverka felt this decriminalization was far too limited.
“You could grow five plants, but if you harvested from your own plants, you were guilty of the crime of producing drugs,” he explains. “And in any case, the plants could still be confiscated. It gave a false sense of freedom, but you were still very vulnerable if you had plants in your garden.”
LAUNCHING A MAGAZINE
Prague’s annual Cannafest, an international confab of growers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts, first convened in 2010. And it was also the year that Veverka launched Legalizace magazine. With ads from seed banks and grow shops, it took off fast.
Seeds were made legal in the 2010 reform — at least until they were planted — and sometimes the magazine gave out seeds as a promotion, in a plastic bag attached to the cover. There were explicit instructions on cultivation, curing, preparation of edibles, and so on — and general celebration of the cannabis lifestyle. It has been published every two months since then, now boasting a circulation of 12,000.
In 2013, a medical marijuana law was passed, but Veverka notes wryly that it took effect on April 1: “We said that it was indeed an April Fool’s joke.” Domestic cultivation was not allowed, which meant all the national supply had to be imported, initially from the Dutch firm Bedrocan. This meant high prices, and health insurance wasn’t allowed to cover it. “It cost more than 10 euros per gram — double the price on the black market,” says Veverka .
Later, a single certified cultivation facility was established at the town of Slusovice by the Czech company Elkoplast. And in 2020, insurance companies began to cover medical cannabis.
However, with the limited progress came a backlash. 2013 saw the start of a series of raids on grow shops. Even if they were selling legal products, proprietors could be charged with promoting “toxicomania” if there was any material on the premises about cannabis — such as Veverka’s magazine. Some 50 people were thusly charged over the following years. They mostly got probation rather than prison, but the legal harassment was a blow to the burgeoning homegrown scene in the Czech Republic.
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