Argentina approves non-profit patient cannabis collectives

While it may sound like old hat to cannabis industry experts in North America, the Argentine government has just taken a bold step that will allow patients access to medicinal cannabis in a way not found in most reformed jurisdictions elsewhere . Namely, the Argentine Ministry of Health has authorized specially licensed and licensed non-profit organizations to grow cannabis for medical patients.

Each NGO is allowed to provide cannabis to up to 150 people, grow both indoors and outdoors, and register multiple properties for the same purpose. Patients must also participate in a special registry called the Registry of the Cannabis Program (REPROCANN). Nonprofit organizations that enroll more than 150 patients may also apply for approval to expand those patient numbers into the National Program for the Study and Research of Medicinal Cannabis.

Resolution 673 modifies an Argentine resolution passed in March last year that established and regulated the operation of the REPROCANN program and created the basic parameters of controlled cultivation for medicinal users.

The details

Each non-profit organization is allowed to grow up to nine plants per patient and is allocated up to 6 m² for indoor growing and up to 15 m² for outdoor growing for this purpose. When transported by vehicle, up to six 30ml bottles of cannabis extract or up to 40 grams of dried flower are allowed by authorized personnel.

The program was set up to facilitate guaranteed access to treatments for medicinal cannabis users and allow third parties to provide the same to registered patients.

Cannabis reform in Argentina

Cannabis has been decriminalized for personal use in Argentina since the Supreme Court ruled in 2009 and further ruled that personal use is a constitutional right. General consumption is tolerated. The consumption for medical purposes was not regulated until now. However, growing, selling and transporting cannabis remained illegal.

In March 2017, the Argentine Senate approved the medical use of CBD oil. In late November 2020, President Alberto Fernandez signed a decree allowing home cultivation of cannabis and subsidized medical access.

What Argentina is doing right

While it’s hardly the most prominent cannabis reform program in the world, Argentina’s government appears to be taking a page from other reform programs that have been implemented elsewhere — as well as what hasn’t worked.

For example, in both the US and Canada, patient populations similar to those in Argentina became the basis for legalizing the commercial industry. However, in countries like Holland, certainly until the start of the official national cultivation trial next year, and currently in Spain, the cultivation and cultivation of plants for coffeeshops and clubs remain largely unregulated. Transport between the place of cultivation and the place of consumption and sale remains a dangerous matter, since the entire process is still in a gray area.

In addition, the idea of ​​formalizing patient collectives has not caught on in countries like Europe. Currently, only Switzerland plans to introduce federally regulated cannabis clubs – although the first edition of the same will still be in pharmacies.

The whole discussion about patient collectives and non-profits is completely off the table in Germany, now in the process of establishing guidelines for recreational use (and incredibly delaying the decriminalization process). Patients are still largely left to their own devices in a maze of bureaucratic bureaucracy, beginning with physicians’ reluctance to prescribe cannabis extracts and medicines (and even more cannabis flower), and repeated thwarting of those requests by insurance companies and the state-run- Regulator who makes the final approvals.

When they don’t get this, many patients (who don’t suddenly stop being sick) turn to the black market, which is dangerous for patients both on the quality side and, of course, face criminal penalties if caught with more than about five become up to 15 grams of grass (depending on where they are caught).