Cannabis laws in Bosnia & Herzegovina

Medical: illegal
Recreational: illegal

Cannabis is illegal for medical and recreational use in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In recent years lawmakers and patients have called for the legalization of medical marijuana, but so far no progress has been reached.

Cultivation of industrial hemp by licensed farmers is legal for fibers, animal feed, and hemp seed production, as long as the plants have 0.2% THC or less. However, growers are not allowed to process the flower.

Possible penalties

Growing, buying, or selling cannabis is illegal in Bosnia and Herzegovina and being caught doing so means you can face large fines and jail time.

Medical marijuana in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Despite overwhelming public support for medical marijuana, there is currently no legal program for patients in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

There have been several pushes for a medical marijuana program. In 2016, the Ministry of Civil Affairs created a task force to examine the feasibility of and make recommendations for a medical cannabis program, sparking hope for legalization.

In 2019, a member of the House of Representatives introduced an initiative to legalize medical cannabis. Nothing resulted from either initiative. Another article pushing for medical legalization was published in 2022, and there is hope the government will re-examine the issue.

CBD regulations

CBD exists in a gray area in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although industrial hemp is legal, processing the flower (the part of the plant that contains CBD) is not. There are no laws explicitly banning CBD, but there is no legal infrastructure for processing it either.

The country is not a member of the European Union, and does not need to recognize the 2020 EU Court ruling that determined CBD and its products were not narcotics, so “a country of the European Union cannot prohibit the marketing of cannabidiol legally produced in another member state.”