Cannabis: the Argentine government legalized self-cultivation for medicinal use
With the publication of Decree 883/2020 in the Official Gazette, the Government established a new regulation for the law on the medicinal use of cannabis that "facilitates and promotes scientific research aimed at possible therapeutic uses", seeks to ensure "access to therapies in a safe and informed way for all users ", even through" self-cultivation or solidarity cultivation ".
The norm also establishes that social works, the State and prepaid "guarantee" that access. According to the regulations, in the event that patients are not cared for in the public health system, “coverage must be provided by the Social Works and Health Insurance Agents of the National System, the other social works and organizations that do their times created or governed by national laws, and companies or entities that provide prepaid medicine services ”.
According to the text published in the Official Gazette, Decree No. 738/17 with which the macrismo sought to implement the law caused access to cannabis oil and its derivatives to be restrictive because “only those who join the research protocols in refractory epilepsy ”, leaving out other pathologies.
Likewise, the previous regulation allowed the importation of cannabis oil and its derivatives, but this was “economically exclusive, considering the high cost of importing it”.
The new regulation creates "a specific registry for users who grow Cannabis for medicinal, therapeutic and / or palliative purposes." Article 8 stipulates the creation of the Cannabis Program Registry (Reprocann), where they can register to receive authorization for personal or network cultivation.
"At last the plant was recognized for what it is: a therapeutic tool and not a demon," Salech said in dialogue with this medium. Today the plant is a little freer and the freedom of the plant is the freedom of everyone ”.
The new regulation also promotes "the creation of a network of associated public and private laboratories that guarantee the control of the derivatives produced". The text maintains that one of the objectives is to promote clinical research and those carried out by “the Conicet, other science and technical organizations, universities, civil society organizations, scientific societies, academic, national, provincial and municipal institutions, related to the therapeutic and scientific purposes of the Cannabis plant and its derivatives ”.
"There are international experiences that indicate that, within a framework of safety and quality, together with medical monitoring, the potential damage that the use of Cannabis from an uncontrolled market can produce is reduced," the decree states.
