Second Brazilian Senate committee approves bill on self-cultivation for medicinal purposes

The Brazilian Senate's Social Affairs Committee has just approved a bill decriminalizing the cultivation of cannabis for personal and therapeutic use. The bill had already been approved last December by the Commission for Human Rights and Participatory Legislation (CDH). At present, certain cannabis-based medicines are authorized but they have to be imported and, in practice, are not very accessible.

A popular initiative

In 2015, Brazil launched an e-citizenship program which polls the population on specific issues and studies ideas for legislation submitted by citizens via an online Senate platform. For a citizen's suggestion (known as a idea legislativa in Brazilian) is considered by the Senate, it must garner at least 20,000 votes in less than four months. If this is the case, the suggestion is studied by the relevant commission, the Commission for Participatory Legislation. Depending on how it is voted, it may or may not become a bill.

This is how the’Legislative idea no. 78.206 which proposed the decriminalization of cannabis cultivation for personal use has reached the Senate benches. It received 32,162 online signatures between 26/06/2017 and 29/06/2017, in just a few days. It originally concerned the decriminalization of the use and cultivation of cannabis for recreational purposes, and was thus introduced by Senator Sérgio Petecão at the 105th extraordinary meeting of the aforementioned commission. She rejected it. Instead, it approved an alternative version of this suggestion, put forward by Senator Marta Suplicy, which restricts the use and cultivation of cannabis for therapeutic purposes. It is in this form that suggestion n°25 of 2017 was transformed into a bill and transferred to the Social Affairs Committee, which approved it on Monday.

Comissão de Assuntos Sociais aprova descriminalização do cultivo da cannabis para uso pessoal terapêutico (PLS 514/2017). Medida segue para Comissão de Constituição e Justiça.

- Senado Federal (@SenadoFederal) November 28, 2018

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Medical cannabis: an emergency

The senator behind the suggestion recalled that doctors, psychologists, educationalists and family members of people who use cannabis as a medicine had reported on the therapeutic benefits of its use in epilepsy and autism at a public hearing held in committee. Some two million Brazilians suffer from epilepsy, and a third of them have a type of epilepsy resistant to conventional treatments. She also defended self-cultivation against a medical cannabis industry, as the production costs of artisanal cannabis oil are very low and therefore accessible to impoverished Brazilian families. At present, importing cannabis-based medicines costs around 343 euros, a prohibitive cost for some families.

According to the senator, Brazilian society is not ready to decriminalize the use of cannabis for recreational purposes, but the liberalization of self-cultivation for patients is a matter of urgency. She points out that Brazil's public health situation is extremely precarious, with high levels of drug use of all kinds. In this context, liberalizing cannabis would not be enough to curb drug trafficking. This is not the opinion of Paulo Texeira, leader of the Labor Party in the Chamber of Deputies, who last July tabled a bill to liberalize cannabis. a bill of law for the legalization and regulation of recreational cannabis.

An uncertain future

The bill for the legalization of cultivation for personal and therapeutic use amends article 28 of the French Criminal Code. law no. 11.343 of 2006 which prohibits the cultivation of plants that can be transformed into altering and addictive substances. It excludes from this ban the cultivation of Cannabis Sativa for «personal use in limited quantities justified by treatment». The bill would therefore authorize the seeding, cultivation and harvesting of cannabis by patients benefiting from a doctor's prescription.

Now approved by the Social Affairs Committee, it must now go to the Justice and Constitution Committee. It must then be approved in plenary session in the Senate before finally being presented to the lower house. It promises to be a long and eventful journey, but the biggest obstacle in its path is undoubtedly Brazil's new president-elect Jair Bolsonaro, who takes a very conservative stance on the issue. In a tweet from June 23 Before coming to power, he had said: «I have always taken a stand against the liberalization of drugs and abortion».

Um chefe de Estado deve tomar posições, decidir, mostrar a todos sua verdadeira face. Sempre me posicionei contra a liberação das drogas e aborto.
Marina ao sugerir plebiscito, sem dizer sua posição para temas tão relevantes, se esquiva e lava suas mãos no politicamente correto.

- Jair M. Bolsonaro (@jairbolsonaro) June 23, 2018