By Jon Hiltz

 

It all started with a drug raid in Lima, Peru. Police entered a home where a group of parents were growing marijuana to make oil in order to treat their children who suffer from epilepsy and various other diseases.

Like many other countries, the lack of medical cannabis legislation combined with the world’s newfound knowledge of available treatments forces otherwise law abiding citizens to do what is necessary for their families.

This sad situation has not been lost on Peru’s leader, President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who has recognized the necessity of medical cannabis. He will be presenting a plan to legalize medical marijuana in the South American country to his opposition-dominated legislature.

In the proposal, trafficking and the use of marijuana for purposes other than medicine would remain a crime. At the very least, however, if the plan is adopted the people who need cannabis will be able to gain access through their medical system.

Aida Farfan was among the group of parents growing marijuana for more than 80 members whose sick children benefit from the medicinal properties of cannabis. She pointed out that the collective has been petitioning the government for years to get medical marijuana legalized. In the absence of that legislation, the parents have had no other choice but to take matters into their own hands.

President Kuczynski is expected to have an uphill battle against an ultra-conservative political party that controls 72 out of 130 seats in Congress. However, if this proposal manages to become law, Peru will join other South American countries that have legalized medical marijuana. Those countries include Colombia, Brazil, Chile and of course the one that starred it all, Uruguay.

As Peru contemplates the future of medical marijuana, the parents of these children in need will continue to do anything they can to give their kids relief from diseases that no human with a beating heart would wish on anyone.

The cannabis world is watching and hoping alongside them.