Montenegro’s cannabis petition draws parties and patients into reform debate

A cannabis-reform petition with more than 6,500 signatures drew Montenegro’s political parties into a renewed debate in June 2022. Alongside the campaign, Pobjeda published the experience of Edin Šarkinović, a patient who described using cannabis on medical advice abroad and facing electronic monitoring at home.^[1]

A patient described the cost of punishment

Šarkinović had quadriplegia following a neck injury in 2004. He told Pobjeda that he received a recommendation to use cannabis while undergoing treatment in the United States and found it helped his symptoms. He also described serving six months with an ankle monitor after police found roughly 50 grams of cannabis in his home.^[1]

He said the restrictions affected his wife as well, because he depended on her assistance. As a campaigner working with Legalizuj.me, he called for education, medical expertise and a regulated system.^[1]

Parties discussed medical access and wider reform

Pobjeda reported that the Social Democratic Party had announced a medical cannabis-oil proposal. The Liberal Party agreed with Legalizuj.me that MP Andrija Popović would take proposals covering decriminalisation, market regulation and medical use to parliament. Other parties supported medical access in principle while emphasising controls.^[1]

Popović had proposed medical cannabis in 2014, arguing for pain relief in serious illnesses and citing western European practice. The renewed campaign put that earlier proposal alongside a petition and patients’ public accounts.^[2][1]

Existing law separated several activities

Montenegro’s drug law, in its 2013 consolidation, prohibited unauthorised use and personal possession. Holding drugs for personal use contrary to the law carried a €100–€2,000 misdemeanour fine. The same law provided licences for medical and pharmaceutical production and trade and permitted prescribed quantities of drug-containing medicines.^[3]

Food and industrial hemp had another controlled route. Growers needed permits and whole-crop purchase contracts, with detailed 2014 rules covering low-THC crops, certified seed and land notifications. Farmers had to report hemp-growing land by 1 May each year.^[3][4]

Enforcement continued alongside the debate

The later Trnovo investigation showed police continuing to pursue cannabis production and distribution. In October 2025, they reported a third arrest linked to a plantation of about 13,100 plants discovered near Bar that August.^[5]

That investigation has its own history article. The Montenegro profile brings the possession penalties, supply offences and licensed hemp route together.