Colombia announced last Friday, Nov. 13, that it has plans to authorize selling of medical Marijuana after it has suspended airborne fumigation of illegally raised crops.
Colombia is preparing a decree that would approve marijuana for medical use, and President Juan Manuel Santos said that the decree would be signed soon. The coming law will regulate every detail of the marijuana distribution in the country, from licensing growers to marketing and eventually exporting marijuana to countries that have legalized its medicinal use.
There are a number of companies interested in establishing a manufacturing and marketing industry involving selling marijuana. However, the government reminded the public that the legalizing of medical marijuana does not mean that using the plant to produce recreational or commercial purposes is allowed.
"Nobody is talking about legalizing anything except for these two purposes," Colombia Justice Minister Yesid Reyes said.
Colombia has had a long history of being a central hub for marijuana and narcotics production and drug trafficking. In recent years, current law states that the maximum allowed possession of marijuana is up to 20 grams or the same number of marijuana plants for personal use only.
Once marijuana is legalized in the country for medicinal purposes, Colombia will become one of the first several countries to allow use of medical marijuana, joining the likes of Mexico and Chile.
Other countries, including the U.S., are clamoring for medical marijuana to be made legal especially for those who are no longer responsive to traditional forms of pain medication like terminally ill patients.
Marijuana is infamous for being a recreational drug known as pot, which was smoked like a cigarette, though recent medical studies showed that marijuana in controlled doses can also be used in relieving severe pain and remedy symptoms of epilepsy and possibly other neural disorders.
In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, clinical trials suggested that marijuana is indeed able to relieve chronic pain. However, researchers believe that more research is needed to support the benefits of marijuana in other conditions though users claim it can help treat depression, anxiety and other psychological disorders.
More importantly, marijuana use was associated with several undesirable adverse effects such as nausea, dizziness, disorientation and hallucinations. The researchers also admitted that they still need to verify if the benefits patients experienced are indeed due to taking marijuana because the association was as not statistically significant as what they would like it to be.
"Further large, robust, randomized clinical trials are needed to confirm the effects of cannabinoids," Penny Whiting from the University Hospitals Bristol said in their study
