Cannabis-based products on offer at a newly opened shop in Poznan, central Poland.

While the sale of hemp is banned in Poland, the Cannabis Pharmacy, as it is called, assures the available assortment is made from the plant’s botanical variety and does not contain the psychoactive agent, THC.

Spot-checks by the police and sanitary authorities, run since the shop opened earlier this month, confirmed the shop’s merchandise can be legally purchased in the country.

„Our products, which contain cannabis extracts, have painkilling and anti-inflammatory properties,” shop assistant Danuta Meller told website Wp.pl. The array of products on offer range from ointments, creams to oils, which help relieve migraine, rheumatism, psoriasis or joint pain, the retailer assures.

While the manufactured goods are diet supplements rather than bona fide pharmaceuticals, this does not stop a steady stream of patrons referred by physicians to treat their maladies with cannabis-based products.

The Cannabis Pharmacy is the fourth such shop in Poland, alongside outlets in the southern cities of Katowice, Rybnik and Rzeszów.

Grzegorz Napieralski, one of the major MPs from the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) has resigned from the party.

He announced his decision at a press conference held outside the Parliament on Saturday. The party’s former leader and presidential candidate explained he could no longer collaborate with the grouping due to an ongoing conflict with party leader Leszek Miller.

“We have gone our separate ways and have completely different outlooks on how to run politics,” Napieralski stated.

“This is why I have taken the decision to leave SLD. This is a very difficult step for me, especially after 20 years of membership. But there is no point in engaging in pointless disputes, such clashes won’t change our reality. We’re not helping our fellow citizens.”

Grzegorz Napieralski did not disclose his plans for the future, but assured he would do so early next week.

Meanwhile, former Your Movement spokesperson Andrzej Rozenek announced he would officially launch a new social democratic grouping jointly with Napieralski in the upcoming week.

An MP since 2004, Grzegorz Napieralski headed the SLD in the years 2008-2011. The official took part in the presidential race in 2010, coming in third with 13 percent of votes in the first round of the elections.

Although Poland will announce in July how many migrants it will take on as part of an EU-wide policy, the country does not have a plan to integrate them in society, a report says.

Mirosław Bieniecki, the head of Institute of Migrantion Studies, which published the report, said that “From now, we should spend a lot more energy, a lot more time and resources so that Poland’s integration policy is implemented in a coherent and thoughtful manner.”

The European Commission recommended that over the next two years Poland take on almost 2,700 asylum seekers originally from Syria and Eritrea who had landed in Italy and Greece.

During an EU summit on Thursday and Friday the leaders of member countries agreed to take on migrants, but on a voluntary basis – not stick to the quotas set by the EC.

According to Piotr Kaźmierkiewicz from the Institute for Migration Studies, the disadvantage of the Polish method of integration is that most of the activities are financed via European funds.

“However,” Kaźmierkiewicz noted, “in recent years progress has been made. Poland set out its priorities in terms of integration and migration of foreigners.”

A new opinion survey shows that the two major parties Civic Platform (PO) and Law and Justice (PiS) share a similar support.

If elections were to be held last Sunday, a political grouping led by conservative PiS would have garnered 28 percent of the ballot, according to a poll by IBRIS for daily Rzeczpospolita.

Since the previous poll in June, PiS increased support by four percentage points.

Meanwhile, senior coalition member PO would receive 26 percent. This is an increase of five percentage points since June.

The minor parties, which has seen high support in previous polls have started to lose ground.

The as-yet-unnamed party led by rock musician Paweł Kukiz – the dark horse of the first round of the May presidential election – would gain 21 percent. In June, the IBRIS poll said that Kukiz would get more votes that PiS.

Support for NowoczesnaPL, a new party led by economist Ryszard Petru, also saw a wane in support. Only five percent declared they would vote for the party, a three percentage-point drop from June.

PSL, SLD and Korwin would gain five percent (+1pp), four percent and two percent respectively.

With a net value of around PLN 16 billion (EUR 3.84 bln) serial entrepreneur Jan Kulczyk is once again Poland’s richest individual.

Kulczyk has regularly topped the list published yearly by the Wprost weekly.

“Business was brisk this last year for the richest Pole. The billionaire’s wealth has grown mainly due to the increase in the value of his stake in Ciech chemical, and the international brewer SAB Miller, which is listed in London. Kulczyk bought Ciech from the treasury last year for PLN 620 million. Today the company is worth PLN 1.5 billion,” Wprost said.

Polsat’s Zygmunt Solorz-Żak clinched second place with a net value of PLN 12.5 billion.

Wprost calls him “The biggest media mogul in this part of Europe.” Were it not for the giant PLN 14 billion loan for the purchase of the Plus mobile network operator, Solorz-Żak would be in the top league of billionaires worldwide, the weekly added.

In other places in the top ten riches people in Poland were:

Michał Sołowow – PLN 8.3 billion
Dariusz Miłek – PLN 5.3 billion
Leszek Czarnecki – PLN 5.2 billion
Grzegorz Jankilewicz – PLN 4.75 billion
Sławomir Smołikowski– PLN 4.75 billion
German Efromovich – PLN 3.52 billion
Jerzy Starak – PLN 3.1 billion
Grażyna Kulczyk – PLN 2.7 billion

Eighteen year-old Viktoria Nowak from Poland has won the 14th edition of the Eurovision Young Dancers Competition in Pilsen, the Czech Republic.

Nowak came ahead of nine other contestants, having won the final duel against Staša Tušar from Slovenia.

The Pole presented ‘A piece in old style’ choreographed by Jacek Przybyłowicz, to music by the world-famous Polish composer Henryk Mikołaj Gorecki (1933-2010). She collected EUR 7,000 in prize money.

Wiktoria Nowak is this year’ s graduate of the ballet school in Poznań. In the past few seasons, she has taken part in several ballet productions in the city’s Grand Theatre.

Thanks to her victory, the next edition of the Eurovision Young Dancers Competition, in two years’ time, will be held in Poland.

The high cost of insuring a right-hand drive car in Poland makes registering UK-built cars in Poland far from attractive.

Poland allowed the registration of right-hand drive cars as of 21 April. Earlier such cars had to be reconstructed before registration.

Some insurers are asking for three times higher premium than for left-hand cars. Bankier.pl research shows that Ergo Hestia in some cases is asking for up to four times the regular price to insure a right-hand drive car.

Insurers are clear why the hikes exist. One quoted by Bankier.pl cited research by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia from 2007 that owners of right-hand drive cars in Canada caused 40 percent more accidents than their left-hand drive counterparts. Polish roads, one insure said, make this risk even higher.

Poland is rather a country of emigration, it is also a place chosen by thousands of foreigners.

As arises from the recent Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), the country is slightly more welcoming for immigrants than before.

A new law that entered into force in 2012 provides a clearer path to citizenship for foreigners.

However, Poland’s lack of an integration strategy for its non-EU residents is still reflected in its low MIPEX scores in most areas. For the last few years Poland’s minor improvements have not been enough to keep up with other countries catching up on integration. In this year’s MIPEX ranking Poland came 32 out of 38 countries.

Michał Owczarek spoke to Thomas Huddleston of the Migration Policy Group from Brussels, principal author of the Migrant Integration Policy Index for Poland.

„Poland is trying to make sure that people can clearly apply for citizenship with their clear right and that it’s not a discretionary, complicated procedure like you can see in a lot of other countries,” Thomas Huddleston said.

A new encyclical to be published by the Vatican this week is heavily critical of the use of fossil fuels, with the daily Rzeczpospolita reminding its readers that Poland is one of the biggest producers of coal, and hence also CO2 emissions.

The document, to be released on 18 June, devotes a large amount of text to the question of brown coal excavation, the daily Rzeczpospolita reports. Those countries, including Poland, that produce a lot of coal, are destroying the environment, the report notes.

„The encyclical is certainly not directed against hard working miners,” Franciscan Stanisław Jaromi, head of the Saint Francis Ecology Movement, said.

„It is rather an attempt to turn global authorities’ attention to the sector,” he added. “For years we have heard talk about restructuring, introducing new technologies that would lower CO2 and basically not much has actually happened,” Jaromi told Rzeczpospolita.

Coal mining in Poland produces about 55 percent of primary energy consumption and 75 percent of electricity generation. Poland is the second-largest coal-mining country in Europe, after Germany, and the ninth-largest coal producer in the world. The country consumes nearly all the coal it mines.

In January PM Ewa Kopacz rescinded plans to restructure the industry in the face of strong opposition from mining unions, long a political force to be reckoned with and for many an impediment to genuine moves to alter Poland’s energy mix.