In Chile, workers began harvesting the country's first medical marijuana crop, breaking new ground in cancer treatment in a nation where cannabis is outlawed as a hard drug.
With the blessing of local authorities, the Daya Foundation, a charitable group, began harvesting some 400 plants sown last October under a special permit to extract cannabis oil to be given free of charge to 200 cancer patients as pain treatment.
US Congress Introduces Medical Marijuana
As an attempt to end federal restrictions on increasingly accepted use of medical marijuana, US senators passed a comprehensive legislation for its use.
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The plants were sown in a small field measuring about 100 square meters (1,100 square feet) in La Florida, an affluent district of the capital Santiago.
They were taken to a heavily guarded enclosure after the harvest, and will be dried and sent to a laboratory for processing.
The first doses are expected to be sent to doctors in January 2016.
![Jamaica Eases Marijuana Law]( "Jamaica Eases Marijuana Law")
Jamaica, long associated with a vibrant pot-smoking culture, passed a law decriminalizing possession of small amounts of ganja.
"This is about the dignity of patients who are dying every day in pain and with very expensive medical bills," said Rodolfo Carter, the mayor of La Florida, at a ceremony marking the harvest.
Cecilia Heyder, a 47-year-old woman with lupus and breast cancer, said she has been arrested several times for using marijuana to ease her pain. "I'm not a criminal or a drug trafficker. I didn't ask to get sick," she said.
She welcomed the project to give patients like her legal access to the drug, which she says spared her from unbearable pain.
"I don't have to use a wheelchair anymore. It changed my quality of life. I'm not going to get better, but I'm not in pain," she said.
The harvest came as Chile's Congress debated a bill that would legalize the cultivation of up to six cannabis plants for private recreational or medicinal use.
Approved Monday by the congressional health committee, the bill would take marijuana off the list of hard drugs in the socially conservative country and make it a soft drug like alcohol.
But it would maintain the ban on using marijuana in public and limit the amount a person can possess to 10 grams.
Currently, Chileans are allowed to consume marijuana in private, but it is illegal to sell or grow the drug.
Source: AFP
The first doses are expected to be sent to doctors in January 2016.
Jamaica Eases Marijuana Law
Jamaica, long associated with a vibrant pot-smoking culture, passed a law decriminalizing possession of small amounts of ganja.
Advertisement
"This is about the dignity of patients who are dying every day in pain and with very expensive medical bills," said Rodolfo Carter, the mayor of La Florida, at a ceremony marking the harvest.
Cecilia Heyder, a 47-year-old woman with lupus and breast cancer, said she has been arrested several times for using marijuana to ease her pain. "I'm not a criminal or a drug trafficker. I didn't ask to get sick," she said.
She welcomed the project to give patients like her legal access to the drug, which she says spared her from unbearable pain.
"I don't have to use a wheelchair anymore. It changed my quality of life. I'm not going to get better, but I'm not in pain," she said.
The harvest came as Chile's Congress debated a bill that would legalize the cultivation of up to six cannabis plants for private recreational or medicinal use.
Approved Monday by the congressional health committee, the bill would take marijuana off the list of hard drugs in the socially conservative country and make it a soft drug like alcohol.
But it would maintain the ban on using marijuana in public and limit the amount a person can possess to 10 grams.
Currently, Chileans are allowed to consume marijuana in private, but it is illegal to sell or grow the drug.
Source: AFP
Marijuana Legalized in Alaska
The use of marijuana has been legalized in Alaska, which became the third American state to legalize the drug after Colorado and Washington.
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Medical Marijuana Accepted by Florida Republican LegislatorsMedical Marijuana was once opposed by Republican lawmakers in Florida, but they are now accepting it, motivated by the strong show of support from voters. | Advertisement
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