The initiative that proposes to legalize the essential oils of the Marijuana plant for medicinal purposes in Costa Rica will be analyzed by the heads of the fraction of the National Liberation (LN), Christian Social Unity (USC), and Citizen Action (AC) parties.
The draft Law on the Production of Cannabis and Hemp for Medical Purposes was presented on March 25th, 2019, by the National Integration Party (PIN) deputy, Zoila Rosa Volio Pacheco, who asks for support for approval in Congress.
“I am reaching consensus with the deputies, talking to them one by one, to get them to support me because I am alone”, said the congresswoman on Monday in the “Nuestra Voz” program. Both Carlos Ricardo Benavides, Erwen Masís, and Víctor Morales undertook to analyze the project with their benches. “It is interesting and disruptive; we are going to review it. I am interested in the fraction seeing it, analyzing it and if there is a consensus, it is going forward”, Masis said.
“It seems irrational to me that there are patients dying with intense pain and that a resource can not be rationally used, I think that in Costa Rican society we should be broader in order to discuss things rationally and not from the Manichean point of view”, added Benavides.
The proposal establishes as an objective “to regulate the mechanisms of planting, cultivation, harvesting, production, processing, storage, distribution, industrialization, commercialization, export, transportation, sale, use and consumption of Cannabis Sativa L (marihuana) plants and their varieties. and the Cannabis plant or “Industrial Cannabis”, as well as the import and reproduction of seeds, sanitary registration of medicinal products, food supplements, cosmetics or food, all in accordance with the uses, ranges, presentations, and purposes authorized in this law.”, as stated in Article 1 of the text.
Volio said he had made a prior consultation with the Costa Rican Institute on Drugs (ICD), however, added that it would be necessary that this entity, as well as others that would be involved, refer to the initiative.
The legislator also hopes that it will be assigned to the Permanent Commission of Agricultural Affairs, although that depends on the Government because they are in ordinary sessions (agenda marked by the Government). Currently, the medicinal products of that plant are already legal in 21 countries, while representing a global market of more than 1 billion people.
