Stacks of magazines are piled high in Robert Veverka’s office in Prague, Czech Republic. In a few days he will leave this office for good. He doesn’t know where the thousands of spare copies—representing his years of reporting and publishing information on drug policy and harm reduction—will end up.
In 2020, after a decade of editing Legalizace, Czechia’s first pro-cannabis magazine, Veverka was accused of the “spreading of toxicomania” (síření toxikomanie), which can be roughly translated from Czech law as promoting drug addiction.
According to local media reports, police examined 60 issues of the magazine from 2010 to 2020 and brought more than 300 charges against him. It came two months after Veverka—a well-known activist and campaigner—announced his intention to stand as a political candidate for the Senate.
In 2021 a court imposed a fine and a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for 30 months. After a higher-court appeal in 2023, the suspended prison sentence was revoked, but Veverka and his publishing company were fined a larger total of 250,000 Czech crowns (around $10,400).
He has continued to appeal his conviction, and in December 2024, the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic ruled that some of the articles he published may be protected by the constitution.
“Without open and free debate—even on controversial issues such as substance abuse—democracy cannot function effectively,” stated Tomáš Langášek, judge rapporteur of the nation’s highest court.
Veverka’s case has now been sent back to the regional court of appeal for a new hearing on the articles in question.
As his country takes tentative steps towards full cannabis legalization—personal possession was decriminalized in 2010, and medical cannabis legalized in 2013—Veverka spoke out to Filter about his five-year fight to clear his name.
“We were mirroring the prohibition propaganda—we wanted to publish articles about legal and illegal substances, highlighting positive and negative aspects to educate the public.”
Sarah Sinclair: Going back to the beginning, how did you first become involved in the cannabis and drug policy reform space?
Robert Veverka: Since I was 18 I have been interested in cannabis. I traveled for a couple of years and spent time in the Netherlands, where I saw the legislation there. Although it’s not perfect, it’s tolerated. I went back to the Czech Republic in 2007 and was asked by my friends to help them to organize a demonstration for the legalization of cannabis. I became the main organizer and it had a couple of thousand people there. After that I became involved with the NGO behind it, and a year later, a spokesperson for the organization.
SS: Legalizace was the first pro-cannabis magazine in Czechia. What was the catalyst for launching it?
RV: We started a campaign helping people who were looking for medicinal cannabis. We gave them seeds for free and helped them find information. As more and more people were asking, I would spend a lot of time answering their questions one by one. At a certain point I thought maybe it would be cool to start some sort of media publication, where we could actually collect all the questions and then find the answers.
SS: The magazine became something of a collectible item for many readers, marking a moment in history—and you’ve said you wanted it to be something your mother or grandmother could pick up and read. Can you tell me more about the type of content you were publishing?
RV: We were covering all kinds of topics, like medicinal use of cannabis, legislation, industrial hemp, other substances and topics related to global war on drugs. I always said we were mirroring the prohibition propaganda—we wanted to publish articles about legal and illegal substances, highlighting positive and negative aspects to educate the public.
We were asking people like police, artists and politicians what they thought about prohibition, and working with professionals and experts on topics like harm reduction and rehabilitation. Even the national coordinator of drug policy, Jindřich Vobořil, would write an article on a regular basis.
We also had lots of studies and reports from abroad. We were highlighting information from other countries that were regulating cannabis in ways that respect the human rights and freedom of people to use cannabis or do business with cannabis—to see cannabis as a regular commodity.
It was published six times per year, with 10,000 copies per issue, and it was openly distributed all over the country—it’s not like it was underground. You could buy the magazine everywhere. It was used in the universities as a source of information and it was even quoted in parliament. It was respected and running smoothly until I openly promoted that I was going to stand as a candidate to Senate in a central district of Prague 1 in 2020. Two months later, the police contacted me to inform me they were starting prosecutions for toxicomania.
“Maybe someone thought that I was getting too influential … I was promoting certain changes which the police and conservative groups of politicians were not in favor of.”
SS: That must have come as a shock, especially given how well the magazine was known at that point?
RV: It was surprising. All of the sudden they took 10 years of my work and said, “Actually, you were committing a crime.” The prosecution itself is already a punishment, because it has an impact on everything. It has an impact on you and your state of mind and on your family. Of course, you feel bad about it because you didn’t think you were committing a crime. I was publishing information.
I wasn’t teaching people how to do drugs with the magazine, I was helping those who already do drugs to have enough information to make decisions about informed use … so they understand the benefits and the risks. My intention was to bring something which was missing … to give as much information as possible so that people could decide if they wanted prohibition or regulation.
SS: Do you believe that the arrest may have been politically motivated?
RV: There’s no proof that it was a political order. I was known by these authorities. When I published the very first issue in 2010 I introduced myself to the chief of the police anti-drug department. I interviewed him and met him several times during debates on topics related to the regulation of cannabis.
I don’t know, maybe someone thought that I was getting too influential or that I could have some impact on public opinion. I was promoting certain changes which the police and conservative groups of politicians were not in favor of.
SS: You have a young family. This whole thing must have taken a toll, financially and emotionally. Can you share a bit more about the impact it has had?
RV: I had a small child when I was going to court and I was in the news. Now she’s 7 years old and she still doesn’t actually know that I’m a “criminal”—we had to protect her. I also ended up in debt; they basically helped me go bankrupt by prosecuting me.
It impacted the business itself because they didn’t only prosecute me, but also the company. I continued publishing the magazine for another two years after my arrest, then I stopped the magazine and was just spending all my energy, money and resources on fighting the system.
But it has had a positive impact, too. People and experts have realized that this is too much. My case opened up a debate on the subject of changing the very section on the dissemination of intoxication for which I was prosecuted. As Aldous Huxley said:¨Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.”
SS: in 2023, the year the appeals court upheld your conviction, the government began to prepare a draft law to legalize cannabis for personal use and self-cultivation. Do you find it ironic that this is now making its way through parliament while your case is still being pursued?
RV: Absolutely, it’s super-ironic. The bill is now in its first reading in parliament, so there is still some way to go before it will be legal. We also have a parliamentary election in October, so we don’t know if the coalition will manage to actually pass the law or if we will have to start all over again.
I suppose that there will be changes in drug-policy law sooner than any court would let me go free. I can’t quite imagine they’d say, “Sorry, we made a mistake.” But it would be nice, of course. If cannabis legislation changes for the better, it will also affect the court’s decision as the judges will have to obey the new legislation. So I’d rather wait for the laws to change than wait in court for justice.
“There has been gross censorship, and I don’t like that, because I was born in the 1970s in communist Czechoslovakia, when you could give a speech that the regime didn’t like and you could get in trouble.”
SS: As a journalist myself, and a former editor of a UK cannabis magazine, what happened to you hits very close to home. Is there a part of you that feels a responsibility to fight this in the interests of journalistic freedom?
RV: I’d like to settle this once and for all for everyone else who wants to write about cannabis. In this case, there has been gross censorship, and I don’t like that, because I was born in the 1970s in communist Czechoslovakia, when you could give a speech that the regime didn’t like and you could get in quite a lot of trouble. And in the court I felt that they were using similar tools and just trying to suppress an independent magazine because it could perhaps cause a “revolution.”
I really don’t know if they thought I was too “dangerous” or, as I said, too “influential,” and that’s why they decided to silence me—and for a while they did. The print magazine hasn’t been published since 2022. I’m now ending the lease on my office with magazines everywhere, which I have to get rid of. If the whole thing wasn’t such a bitter tale, it would actually be a funny story to tell—how you can become a state enemy just by starting an independent media company.
SS: Since the verdict you’ve had a lot of public support, both at home and internationally. Did that give you hope?
RV: The support was of course very encouraging. The intention of my work was to do something good for society and I received a lot of public support. There was even a public crowdfunding fundraiser to help with legal costs, and I received attention in the national media, on TV and in international cannabis magazines. I had a lot of support, so I felt that I was on the right track and that I was doing the right thing.
“The situation we have now, where people go to jail for a couple of plants—for a victimless “crime”—that’s something I cannot accept.”
SS: You co-founded the NGO Rational Regulation.cz (RARE) last year, which is promoting “rational change” in cannabis policy in Czechia. What does that look like to you?
RV: We stopped calling our goals legalization and started to call it rational regulation, but we basically still want the same thing. We want rights for people to grow cannabis for personal use and the right to cultivation—or delegation of cultivation, so if I’m not able to grow myself I can delegate my right to someone else through organizations like cannabis social clubs or other concepts. We also want a regulated cannabis market. Last year, we ran a national campaign in which I presented these points in the media.
The situation we have now, where people go to jail for a couple of plants—for a victimless “crime”—that’s something I cannot accept. That’s why I first got involved, because I couldn’t believe we would actually vote for a government which tells us that certain plants are prohibited to grow for personal use in your own backyard. Over the years, I have seen the damage that prohibition does. How it destroys people’s lives and their families more than any cannabis. It is an unacceptable situation.
SS: Given everything that has happened to you, how do you feel about the future, both personally and for the movement as a whole?
RV: I see the future in cannabis. It’s the future crop and it used to be the past crop, which actually helped us to get where we are now. [Hemp] was our main source of materials for sails or ropes, [and was used for] making paper, clothes, food and medicine.
I can see the global change happening. In my lifetime I want to see cannabis removed from the list of global illegal substances and treated like a common plant, like hops or anything else useful. It is hard to believe that we live in a society where we deprive ourselves of such an important plant because of the prejudices caused by anti-drug propaganda, and where we make criminals out of anyone who tastes the “forbidden fruit.”
Yet the illegality of cannabis and prohibition as a whole is the real crime—a crime against humanity. That’s my power, that’s the force which helps me to go on.
Top photograph of Robert Veverka in court by Karel Bednar.
Inset photograph of a copy of Legalizace courtesy of Robert Veverka.
Stacks of magazines are piled high in Robert Veverka’s office in Prague, Czech Republic. In a few days he will … Read More
