Does legal marijuana raise violence and health problems?
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(CNN Spanish) -
The National Assembly of Panama approved this Monday in a third debate the law that regulates the medicinal and therapeutic use of cannabis and its derivatives, among other provisions.
With this step, five years of claims by patients and relatives of people who, they say, require this treatment for different ailments are ended.
During all that time, consensus was not reached due to commercial, licensing and regulatory issues, but mainly because the Ministry of Health of the previous government, under the administration of Juan Carlos Varela (2014 - 2019), opposed the cultivation of cannabis in the country that now, according to the bill, is allowed but with regulations.
It is still in the hands of the president of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo, to sanction the bill and turn it into law.
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With the approval of the measure, a registry of authorized persons for the consumption of cannabis is created and issues related to the import licenses of its derivatives for the commercialization, manufacture, use of seeds, and licenses for scientific research are defined.
The document makes it clear that the Ministry of Health will be in charge of issuing licenses for importation, acquisition and marketing, and prohibits the sale of products derived from medicinal cannabis at home or via the internet in Panama.
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After the approval of the law, Marie Millard, executive director of the Luces Panama Foundation, dedicated to the fight against epilepsy, asked President Cortizo to enact the law and regulate it as soon as possible so that patients with different conditions have access to this product and improve your quality of life, without pain.
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But this time not everyone agrees.
The College of Pharmacists of Panama, as well as Deputy Mayín Correa, expressed their opposition, not to the law, but to the cultivation of cannabis in the country.
Before the approval of the law, Deputy Correa stated before the plenary that she agrees that "in Panama medicine can be imported whose origin is the positive substances of marijuana, what I strongly disagree with is that Panama becomes in a massive planting of marijuana. "
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