Colombia legalizes, regulates medical marijuana

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos signed a decree on Tuesday that legalizes the use of cannabis for medical and scientific purposes. “This decree allows licenses to be granted for the possession of seeds, cannabis plants and marijuana”, he said from the presidential palace.

The President echoes his sentiment, saying, “We want to promote research and production of drugs made from cannabis, just like what we do with any natural element that can give relief to disease of pain”.

President Santos signs the medical marijuana decree. It was authorized under a 1986 law, but the lack of regulation prevented production on a national level. “I repeat, only for medical and scientific purposes”, President Santos said. Experts believe the new decree has opened a way for global market to produce marijuana-based medication.

The health ministry will also grant permits to export such drugs to countries where they are legal.

Colombia’s opening up to the idea of legal marijuana joins several other decriminalization efforts elsewhere in Latin America.

Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Israel and some United States states already allow medical cannabis use. Not only did Plan Colombia make the country’s conflict bloodier and messier, it required the aggressive crop spraying of glyphosate, a chemical that has been banned in much of the world for aerial crop spraying and ruined the legal crops of poor, rural, and indigenous communities. He also gave assurances that Colombia’s commitment to fighting drugs and narcotrafficking would not be affected. Most marijuana produced in the country is for local consumption, whereas cocaine is exported worldwide.

Colombia-one of the world’s biggest suppliers of cocaine, home to some of the most organized drug cartels, and the epicenter of the violent so called “war on drugs” -decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana and cocaine for personal use in 2012.