PR: NPP Legislators Expected To Approve Medicinal Cannabis Legislation

Katelyn Baker;3128732 said:

San Juan – The criticisms that several New Progressive Party (NPP) legislators have expressed against the legalization of medicinal cannabis will be relegated to the past.

The new law-making majority, which begins work in 2017, must pass legislation to legalize the use of medicinal cannabis in Puerto Rico – something that has only been allowed through executive orders signed by Gov. Alejandro García Padilla – Resident Commissioner-elect Jenniffer González assured in an interview with Caribbean Business.

“All of them signed a platform [the Plan for Puerto Rico]. We all made a commitment with our signatures…. The time to fight it [the legalization or not of medical cannabis] was in the [PNP] General Assembly,” the outgoing House minority leader said.

González clarified that she supports the legalization of cannabis for medicinal purposes, not recreational ones. For this reason, she pointed out the need for the process to be carried out through legislation and not by executive orders, since it leaves uncertainties in the process of commercializing it.

“It’s a matter of economy, investment, job creation…. I support this be carried out by law, not by executive order. By executive order, not only do you not have certainty, you don’t have the procedures [made] public” to establish which kind of companies can request permits, she said, leaving aside the possible problems in approving the legislation in the next four years.

The Rosselló’s “Plan for Puerto Rico” also includes a proposal to carry out an industrial hemp project. Hemp is a variety of the Cannabis sativa plant species grown for the industrial uses of its derived products.

“We will establish the legal framework necessary to foster in Puerto Rico the industry for planting, processing and manufacturing industrial hemp products exclusively,” the NPP plan reads.
García Padilla signed Executive Order 10 in 2015, which allows the use of cannabis on the island to treat conditions such as multiple sclerosis, HIV and AIDS, glaucoma, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, migraine and Parkinson’s disease.

Following this, the first dispensary of the plant for medicinal uses opened earlier this month in Toa Baja through Puerto Rican pharmaceutical company NextGen Pharma.

For his part, Health Secretary-designate Rafael Rodríguez Mercado agreed with González on the need to pass legislation to regulate the medicinal use of cannabis.

He also insisted on the importance of conducting scientific studies and investigating which “medical conditions have been clinically and scientifically proven in which cannabis is indicated” for treatment, so that “grey market” doesn’t develop and it isn’t “prescribed willy-nilly to patients who say, ‘Oh, it hurts, I have fibromyalgia.'”

“I am carefully studying all those executive orders, implementation and everything, and I will have a conversation with the governor-elect to set public policy on it,” Rodríguez Mercado said in a WKAQ radio interview.

News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: NPP Legislators Expected To Approve Medicinal Cannabis Legislation
Author: Cindy Burgos Alvarado
Contact: (787) 728-3000
Photo Credit: Agustin Criollo
Website: Caribbean Business

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