After a debate that has been on the table for years, this week, the Congress of Deputies (with the approval of the Government) has just opened the door to the commercialization of products extracted from cannabis for therapeutic purposes.
This means that, within six months, the country’s pharmacies will begin to sell all kinds of solutions to relieve “symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis, some forms of epilepsy, the side effects of chemotherapy and chronic pain or oncological type. The will is clear, the problem is that nobody is very clear about how it is going to be carried out.
The “test mode” is over. Currently, two drugs made from cannabis are already marketed in Spain and, in fact, have received public funding and support. In 2018, the country had some 20,000 hectares of legal marijuana cultivation and, in recent years, a small group of companies have had government authorization to develop, produce and investigate everything that had to do with the therapeutic uses of marijuana. plant.
With a huge obscurantism, yes. To such an extent that for years the agricultural, pharmaceutical and industrial sectors have been demanding a clearer and more advanced regulation that allows the full potential of Spain to be exploited and not miss the “leap” over other countries on the continent.
What we are going to have from now on is an intermediate point between the previous regulation (which allowed therapeutic use, but did so discreetly) and what would be a general legalization. The political agreement will open the hand and, for practical purposes, will allow cannabis to be considered like any other medicine.
The back door for the legalization of consumption? Congress itself is aware that this very decision to seek a middle way is problematic. In his report, he acknowledges that the scientific evidence on the therapeutic uses of cannabis is “limited” and, in fact, he is very strict regarding the type of ailments included in the new regulation. New therapeutic uses of cannabis will only be accepted “when studies provide consistent evidence.”
And it is that what Congress fears (and the final report says so) is that this will become a legalization de facto of marijuana. For this reason, they underline in the report that it is absolutely necessary to prevent the marketing of these products “from being confused with a generic invocation of the use of cannabis by the population” and asks that the consequences of this new regulation be closely controlled.
Why are there six months? Because although the majority of Congress and the Government have agreed, now we have to follow the procedures. The report will be definitively approved by the Health Commission of the Congress next week and, later, it will be sent to the Government. A mere formality because the Ministry had already committed itself to heeding the recommendations of the report and it is more than agreed upon. From that moment on, the Medicines Agency will have to get down to work so that the landing of cannabis in pharmacies becomes a reality.
What can we expect? Little, the truth. It is one more step towards a legalization that every time seems closer. However, the regulation tempers most of the three great effects that the regulation could have: the collection will not be higher (since it is about medicines), employment can grow (although the truth is that the latest studies do not say that legalization has great labor effects) and exports do not seem to be affected more than anecdotally.
Image | Richard T.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism