Brazil Legalizes Home Grown Medical Cannabis – Cannabis News, Lifestyle

Brazil’s Supreme Court has legalized medicinal cannabis for personal use. The decision is likely to set a precedent for similar cases. The Brazilian government has not yet responded to the court’s decision.

What happened

The panel of five judges unanimously agreed that Brazil’s patients should have access to home-grown medicinal cannabis. The three patients in the study can grow cannabis and extract its oil for medicinal use. Current Brazilian laws on medicinal cannabis do not allow home cultivation. All medical cannabis products are imported from abroad.

The decision is similar to Canada’s experience with medicinal cannabis, where courts have often stood up for patients’ rights while governments have undermined them.

Judge Rogério Schietti defended the decision, saying the Brazilian government had failed to take a sensible position on medicinal cannabis. Another judge called Brazil’s medical cannabis laws “a deliberate backward move toward obscurantism.”

Brazil legalizes home-grown medicinal cannabis despite anti-cannabis government

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro faces re-election in October. In June 2021, he openly stated that he was against growing cannabis for medicinal purposes. He is also against legalization.

The Brazilian government has not yet responded to the court’s decision. Protests for medicinal cannabis took place on June 11 and brought out thousands of Brazilians.

So far, Uruguay is the only South American country to have legalized cannabis for medical and recreational use.

Argentina passed a law regulating medicinal cannabis, including setting up a new bureaucracy to control how patients obtain their seeds and derivatives.

Why the courts and not democratic government?

Brazil’s major legalization of home-grown medicinal cannabis, like Canada’s, is a court decision. The government must comply unless it exercises its power to overstep the rule of law, which many governments do.

And that’s not a problem with 2nd world countries like Brazil. When courts in so-called first world countries like Canada ruled that cannabis patients have a right to oils and edibles, Conservative MP Rona Ambrose called the decision “outrageous”. As medical cannabis patients fought for their home grow rights in Allard, the Harper government planned to appeal.

People recognize courts as impartial arbiters of complex legal issues until they make a decision the government doesn’t like.

And those who pursue politics without absurd “democracy” fantasies know that lobbyists carry more weight than a mass of faceless voters. Voters are often manipulated into accepting options A or B, while fortunately they do not know (and are not informed by the corporate press) that options C, D and E exist.

How courts used to work

Before people had the power to elect a new king every four years, we relied on free market courts.

Historically, the West has integrated many overlapping, competing jurisdictions. Tax-based monopoly courts are an entirely new phenomenon.

There used to be hundreds of courts: county, state, city, church, mercantile, etc. These courts had fluid jurisdictions and collected their fees from the litigants, so they competed with each other for business.

Even the royal courts consisted of competing courts: the king’s bank, the common pleaders, the treasury, and the chancery. It was not until the Judicature Act of 1873 and the Appellate Jurisdiction Act of 1876 that the British government monopolized the courts in a single hierarchical structure, followed shortly thereafter by American and Canadian courts.

This step was a mistake and is one of the more important reasons why this system is as dysfunctional as it is.

This is particularly true of Canadian medical cannabis lawsuits such as Allard or R v. Smith.

Patients must fight for their right to adequate access through the monopolistic judicial hierarchy that the government forces taxpayers to fund.

In other words, the patients Allard represented also funded the government’s appeals.

And not just with cannabis; In any conflict with state authority, citizens must fund both sides of the issue.

Will Brazil legalize home-grown medicinal cannabis despite anti-cannabis government?

What will happen in Brazil? Despite an anti-cannabis government, will Brazil legalize home-grown medicinal cannabis? Or will President Bolsonaro appeal the decision or ignore it altogether? (He once jailed his political opponents, so it’s not out of the question that he will exceed his powers in court).

Only time will tell, but the tide is moving toward legalization. And not just in Brazil, but worldwide. Unfortunately, the government’s arbitrary authority over private, personal matters is also growing.