The Dutch government agency responsible for exporting medical cannabis sent an email Thursday to its German customers informing of a delay of up to six weeks in the next shipment of medical cannabis.
“Due to additional testing needed to release the batches for export, we are momentarily out of stock,” the Dutch Office of Medicinal Cannabis (OMC) said in the message to German importers.
MJBizDaily‘s European medical cannabis report estimated that in 2019 the OMC was responsible for the supply of almost 40% of Germany’s total flower imports for pharmacy dispensing.
About half of the flower sold in Germany in 2019 was grown in Canada.
The Dutch government agency has an agreement with the German government to ship 2,500 kilograms in 2020. Normally ships about 200 kilograms every month.
The OMC has at least 40 German clients, the vast majority of which depend exclusively on the supply they get from the Netherlands.
German wholesalers without enough inventory to wait until the next shipment could face difficulties that may ripple through the supply chains of pharmacies, and eventually reach patients, who might have to switch to other available products.
In its email, the OMC said “we hope to have resolved this problem within the next two weeks.”
“It may take approximately 2-6 weeks before we can send out the goods,” it added.
Lately, the supply situation in Germany has been better than ever, with at least 30 different cultivars of flower consistently available, which means that if one product becomes unavailable, there is usually a comparable alternative.
Temporary supply issues continue to occur every now and then.
For example, Canadian producer Aurora Cannabis had to temporarily stop sales of its products in Germany in late 2019.
