Argentina: Government legalizes self-cultivation, sale of medicinal cannabis
Argentine President Alberto Fernández has signed legislation authorizing the self-cultivation and retail sale of medicinal cannabis.
The bill creates a Cannabis Program Registry (REPROCANN) to issue permits for “controlled solidary cultivation,” legalizes the sale of medicinal cannabis in pharmacies, and expands its public access - currently restricted to those with severe epilepsy.
“It is imperative to create a regulatory framework that allows timely, safe and inclusive access and protection for those who need to use cannabis as a therapeutic tool,” the bill stated.
Past the Paradox
A limited legalization of medicinal cannabis was first enacted nationwide in Argentina by Law 27.350, signed by Fernández's predecessor, Mauricio Macri, in 2017.
But Law 27.350, according to Congresswoman Carolina Gaillard of the center-left Front for All (FdT), who co-authored both the 2017 bill and the current one, “was restrictively regulated by the Macri administration, not allowing self-cultivation or access (to cannabis) in other ways.”
“This created a paradox wherein, having a cannabis law, those who sought it for treatment had no legal access to it: they had rely on the black market, or overseas.”
During Macri's 2015-19 tenure, arrests for minor possession of narcotics - mainly cannabis - tripled to 10,000 annually.
Meanwhile, under the Macri-era “Simplified Shares Society” policy at least 40 shell companies were created by one drug trafficker alone - by which around $30 million was laundered in 2018.
“(Former Security Minister) Bullrich chased the small fish to fatten the statistics,” Security Minister adviser Gabriel Fuks charged.
“Building up statistics only based on seizures is not a serious policy.”
At: https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cannabis/20/11/18345191/argentina-government-legalizes-self-cultivation-sale-of-medicinal-cannabis
Advocate Valeria Salech (left), Congresswoman Carolina Gaillard (third from left) and other activists stand in front of Argentina's Security Ministry earlier this year during their campaign to legalize medicinal cannabis.
Gaillard's bill, signed last night by President Alberto Fernández, legalizes both the cultivation and retail sale of medicinal cannabis for any chronic condition.
She co-authored both today's bill, as well as the nation's first legalization bill in 2017 - which, she notes, “did not allow self-cultivation or access (to cannabis) in other ways.”
