Argentina creates a public company to develop medical cannabis

The Argentine government created a technology firm to develop the medical cannabis and industrial hemp industry, Cannabis Conicet, which will operate under the orbit of the leading scientific research body, a public university, and a public hospital.

“We are proud to take this step,” said the Minister of Science, Daniel Filmus, at the company’s presentation.

The company will depend on the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet), the Arturo Jauretche National University (UNAJ), and the High Complexity Hospital El Cruce Dr. Néstor Carlos Kirchner, located in Florencio Varela, Buenos Aires.

“Through this public company (…), we are in a position to provide services, seeds with traceability registered at the National Seed Institute (Inase), set quality standards, and train the community, health professionals, and researchers,” said the scientific coordinator of Cannabis Conicet, neurologist Silvia Kochen, during the presentation made the day before.

Through Cannabis Conicet, the State will strengthen the medical cannabis and industrial hemp industry in all its stages: from cultivation, and production, to clinical use and the training and education of growers and users.

“This commits us to have a State that guarantees, not that represses the use of cannabis, that guarantees and intervenes in public health and, in this line, also to the production,” said the president of the Conicet, Ana Franchi.

The birth of the technology company did not start from Conicet, the university, and the hospital, but from “women who wanted to use medical cannabis with their families and the State repressed them, but they organized themselves and went ahead,” she pointed out.

Cannabis Conicet will carry out studies on the therapeutic use of medical cannabis to accumulate evidence on the efficacy, doses, and aspects involving the use of this plant.

The company will also promote quality controls and have a catalog of seeds for its development and registration.

In May, the government enacted the law on Medicinal Cannabis and Industrial Hemp, a regulation sanctioned by Congress that regulates the development of this industry.

The legislation in force until then was framed in Law 27,350, sanctioned in 2017 during the administration of then-President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), which authorized the medicinal use of the cannabis plant and its derivatives but only allowed its production for experimental purposes.

According to the Executive, global medical cannabis and industrial hemp production will reach US$42.7 billion by 2024, 14 times the value of a decade ago.

The South American nation aspires to become a regional leader in medical cannabis and industrial hemp production.

With information from Sputnik