By Jon Hiltz
The South American nation of Argentina is the latest country to begin walking the path of medical marijuana enlightenment.
Southern Argentina’s Chubut Province has signed a bill into provincial law that allows doctors to prescribe cannabis oil with low levels of THC to patients with epilepsy and any other medical conditions to yet to be defined by the local health minister. At this time, the government has only allowed one strain of oil into the country — the famous Charlotte’s Web made by the Stanley Brothers. The brothers named it Charlotte’s Web after meeting 5-year-old Charlotte Figi in 2012 and seeing her dramatic improvement after taking the oil to reduce her epileptic seizures.
Charlotte’s breathtaking story was a central focus of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s CNN documentary “WEED” produced in 2013. The documentary shined the national spotlight on medical marijuana and gave a face to the issues still facing millions of Americans today.
While all of this takes place in Chubut, Congresswoman Ana Carolina Gaillard, President of the Health Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, is making a strong effort to get medicinal marijuana adopted on a national level. She has stated in congress that Argentina should amend their Narcotics Act to allow medical cannabis nationwide.
Gaillard is also not alone on this as she has bipartisan support from others within the Argentinian government including Front For Victory, the Socialist Party, the Justicialist Party. Bipartisan support means other parties working together for the same common goal, for us North Americans who may have forgotten.
Gaillard also traveled with a delegation to neighboring Chile this week, to learn more about how the Chileans loosened their marijuana laws back in 2015 when they passed a bill that legalized self-cultivation and trade for medicinal purposes.
Small wins in the battle against the War on Drugs are taking place the world over. Every day, cannabis advocates in Colombia, Thailand, Canada, Italy, the UK, Israel, Antigua and Guyana, Jamaica and many more nations are making it difficult for their governments to deny what millions of people know to be true — cannabis is medicine.
