The company Vertical CR processes, before the Ministry of Health, the permission to be able to commercialize medicinal cannabis products in the country. Since the beginning of years, the documentation was submitted to receive the sanitary registration endorsement. However, the authorities requested more information. This was confirmed by the press office of the institution.
“The request for processing was attended to and prevented due to inconsistencies, both from a legal and technical point of view, and to date there has been no response, and they have (Vertical CR) until June (to answer)”, affirmed the Health press office.
The general director of the ethical company, Gerald Murray, expects to complete the documentation in the first weeks of May and start selling products from June on. “We relied on the requirements page of the Ministry of organic products, but they asked us for more data, we had to do tests and analysis from the United States, which is expensive, and next week we will start to translate them and we will deliver them in the first weeks of May”, said Murray.
According to Health office, once they have all the complete data by Vertical CR, they will be evaluated and from there the decision will be taken as to whether or not to approve the commercialization of these products. In the event that the response is negative, the ethical company must wait for the processing of bills that currently exist in the Legislative Assembly on this subject.
One of them was presented by the National Integration Party (PIN) deputy, Zoila Rosa Volio Pacheco, called the Cannabis and Cannabis Production Law Project for Medical Purposes. The text proposes to legalize the essential oils of the marijuana plant for medicinal purposes in Costa Rica.
The business
Murray, who in 2017 was a presidential candidate, explained that they hope to have the approval to register five medicinal cannabis products, including oils, gel capsules, and creams. “We would bring them from California, prices would be affordable, from US$ 3.50 for some strips to oils that would go from US$ 25 to US$ 40, just like the pills”, commented the CEO of Vertical CR.
Its sale would also be free, as required by the Ministry of Health itself. For that already they are in conversations with different franchises of supermarkets to be able to sell them. Another option will be through a physical store that they will have in the country (whose location was not disclosed)”. In the supermarkets they told us that once the records were in, they were willing to distribute the products”, Murray concluded.
Medical marijuana can be smoked, vaporized, eaten and consumed as a liquid extract. The leaves and buds of the plant contain substances known as cannabinoids, which have medicinal properties. The products would serve to treat conditions such as rheumatism, arthritis, cancer, sleep disorders, muscle aches, and colitis, among other conditions.
