Drug policy of Slovakia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Drug policy of Slovakia is the legislative framework that governs all aspects of legal drugs and illegal drugs on the territory of Slovakia. It was established with the country's creation on 1 January 1993; the Slovak Republic taking over all commitments of the former Czechoslovakia. Both domestic and international law governs the manufacture, sale, transport and use of most drugs. Alcohol is the most used drug in Slovakia, featuring prominently in the Slovak culture. Slovakia consistently ranks among the top alcohol consuming countries in the world.
The majority of legal drugs are distributed through a dense network of private pharmacies. Non-prescription drugs are free to buy, but the majority of legal drugs are available only through a bureaucratic process. All citizens are required by law to pay health insurance; health insurance companies, in turn, pay doctors who prescribe the drugs. Due to the Act on Drugs and Medical Devices from 2011, Slovakia enjoys the second cheapest prescription drugs in the European Union, as of 2012.[1]
Slovak illegal drug policy is repressive and often described as "harsh",[2] the law does not differentiate between hard soft drugs and sentences can in theory be as severe as life imprisonment. In Slovakia, illegal drug policy documents have no associated budgets and there is no review of executed expenditures.[3] The only available data coming from an estimate from 2006 suggests that the expenditure represented 0.05% of GDP, with 63.3% for public order and safety, 14.8% for treatment, 7.6% for prevention, 1.8% for coordination, 1.3% for education, 0.9% for harm reduction and 10.3% for other areas.[3]
Amendments to the August 2011 Act on the Scope of Healthcare Provision and the 1 October 2011 Act on Drugs and Medical Aids introduce an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) prescription, stipulating that doctors in Slovakia should prescribe only the API instead of a specific drug brand.[4]
