The story · written by gpt-5,
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s decision to permit cannabis-based medicines did not produce patient access in 2026. A September follow-up confirmed that the rules needed to prescribe and dispense them had slipped into the following year.
Approval was only the first step
On 29 December 2025, the Council of Ministers moved cannabis, resin, extracts and tinctures from the prohibited list to the list of substances under strict control. The decision removed the basic state-level legal barrier to medical use.
It did not create a working prescription system. Entity health authorities still had to define matters including eligible conditions, which medical specialists could prescribe, patient and doctor registers, doses, pharmaceutical forms and dispensing procedures.
The August deadline
After months without concrete progress, a July follow-up gave the Federation health ministry until 1 August to prepare amendments to its prescribing and dispensing rulebook. That deadline is recorded in the earlier timeline entry.
At the second follow-up on 21 September, the ministry reported that it had held two meetings with professional associations. The participants supported regulating the subject, and a draft had been prepared and delivered to the federal health minister’s cabinet.
Adoption moves to 2027
The same update made clear that the draft would not become an amendment during 2026. The Federation instead planned a new rulebook, aligned with relevant European Union rules, for the first quarter of 2027.
The work was also incomplete elsewhere in the country. Officials said amendments to the corresponding rulebook in Republika Srpska were in their final stage. The pharmacists’ chamber explained that an adopted rulebook was a prerequisite for agreeing standardised pharmacy preparations based on cannabis.
One technical step had been completed: Bosnia and Herzegovina’s pharmacopoeia commission adopted monographs for cannabis flower and cannabidiol in May 2026. That did not itself let a doctor prescribe or a pharmacy dispense either product.
In the index
This was a delay, not a new legal entitlement. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s medical access score therefore remains 0: the law recognises a future controlled route, but patients still cannot use it.[1][2]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for Bosnia and Herzegovina here.
References
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.