Argentina’s Supreme Court approves home cultivation of medicinal cannabis

In a case that will draw global attention, Argentina’s Supreme Court has ruled that parents of sick children can grow their own cannabis to treat their children. This decision is in line with existing Argentine law – namely the decriminalization of cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Because family law and cannabis legitimacy overlap, this development is about as significant as a similar Israeli case from 2014. Families of sick children in need of medicinal cannabis threatened to emigrate to Colorado unless they received it the right to obtain medicinal cannabis domestically. The government changed the law within a few weeks.

However, it wasn’t a complete victory for those who pushed their cause in Argentina last week. The court also ruled unanimously that a special patient registry now in effect is not unconstitutional. This was an issue raised by Mamás Cannabis Medicinal (Macame), which set forth the plaintiff’s case. The court argued that the state has the right to control and track all cannabis cultivation, including for medicinal purposes.

The decision in Argentina is of course important domestically. But even as country after country begins to implement home-grown, or at least talk about it, timing is also very important. With this decision, the Argentine court appears to be following a global trend emerging in countries as diverse as Latin America and Europe (previously Malta, Italy, Luxembourg and Portugal) to Asia (particularly Thailand). Home cultivation for both recreational and medicinal purposes is very much a la mode in the international normalization discussion that is now clearly underway, both legally and politically.

Why is Home Grow becoming a global standard as the first step towards reform?

There are several reasons for this rather sudden emergence of what looks remarkably like an international level consensus on home growing issues. Faced with a crisis in health care systems following global austerity measures, followed by a global pandemic, and the inevitability of leisure reform, governments seem to get the message.

In other words, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that home growing isn’t a inflammatory way to undermine a legal market (either medical or recreational). In fact, if pursued (either by registration or licensing, or both), home growing cannabis is a very reasonable route to a normalized market. See Canada – although of course the system is not perfect.

In general, and certainly in countries on the verge of leisure reform, like Germany (for example) today, it is that the people most affected by delays in full legalization are patients. Almost 200,000 criminal proceedings for possession, cultivation and/or use in small quantities are pending in German courts alone. This is a massive waste of time and money that the state can easily cut. In fact, the jurisprudence on appeal is tending in that direction again, if only for the time being. Increasingly, however, courts are recognizing that insurers are also forcing eligible patients to take legal action to obtain coverage. In the meantime, they must source their own sources, taking risks along the way.

Because of this, the whole role around home growing is likely to change in Germany as has happened in other places, albeit here through legislation rather than legal action as just happened in Argentina.

The prosecution of sick people is currently nowhere a winning look. Indeed, making it easier for the chronically ill to more or less self-medicate at a time when healthcare systems are struggling to keep up with just “normal” care just sounds reasonable, no matter how you look at it . Or where. For an extreme example, see Ukraine. But beyond that, every Western state struggles with chronic care — including diseases that are usually treated with cannabis.

In addition to such realities, of course, such legal and policy decisions come at a time when states are being forced to address how enforcement of rules, if not laws themselves, is done – and for issues and issues that far away from pure cannabis reform.

Home Grow stimulates the legal market

Although the Canadian model has shown that patients will be absolute “competitors” to the industry as they will not have to rely on an off-the-shelf store-bought product, there is a different way of looking at all of this. In fact, self-cultivation by patients is a way of stimulating the legal, regulated market. Not to mention the broader economy beyond, which will benefit from money diverted from drug purchases.

Growing cannabis is not easy and takes energy. While there will always be recreational hobbyists, most people, including patients, would prefer to be able to buy cannabis in all its forms the way they buy edibles, medicines, and other legal products.

This in turn creates jobs, revenue and taxes.

The trick, of course, is to find a middle ground that allows both sides to thrive.

Just as legalization itself is inevitable, so is people’s right to grow their own cannabis, for whatever purpose.

After all, beyond all demonization and stigmatization, it is “only” a plant.