Retail associations to stop selling products containing HHC by end of week

Two retail associations have decided to stop selling edible products containing the psychoactive substance HHC, the Czech News Agency reported on Wednesday. The products will be withdrawn from sale by the end of the week, the head of the Association of Safe Vending Machines, Vojtěch Ulman, told the agency. The national anti-drug coordinator Jindřich Vobořil recently called on sellers to withdraw these products but no retailers have complied until now.

Over the past year, about a hundred people have ended up in hospital after ingesting products containing HHC. Health Minister Vlastimil Válek said on social media site X on Tuesday that he wants to include HHC on the list of banned substances. Anti-drug coordinator Jindřich Vobořil, on the other hand, thinks regulation is a better solution than an outright ban, and wants the bill on psychomodulating substances, currently stuck in parliament, to be adopted faster. This would see a ban on advertising for products containing HHC, and would mean they could not be sold in vending machines or to children under the age of 18.