Fernández proposes new bill to develop industry
Last Monday’s state-ofthe-nation speech President Fernández announced a bill to develop Argentina’s medical cannabis industry. Multi-million investments have already been agreed with laboratories.
The Peronist leader ratified the government’s idea of going ahead with a productive agenda for medical cannabis at the local level, affirming that his administration will push a law contemplating its industrialisation.
“Cannabis has highly useful properties for medical and industrial ends. The global industry for medical cannabis will treble its turnover in the next five years. The bill provides for its cultivation exclusively for medical and industrial use,” he said.
Within that framework the national government and the pharmaceuticals sector have agreed to invest millions of dollars in the production of medical cannabis under the knowledge industry and health chapters of the Socioeconomic Council.
Last month the government announced that it would be investing 350 million pesos in research and development towards the local elaboration of cannabis for medical use via the National Programme PRODUCIR+ SALUD.
The CILFA pharmaceuticals sector (including the local laboratories Bagó, Roemmers, Temis Lostaló among others) joined this announcement with a pledge to invest US$120 million this year and next while their international CAEME counterpart (Sanofi, Bayer and 39 other companies) agreed to inject US$300 million this year.
According to international consultant María Laura Sandoval, a specialist who advises in this area, Argentina has a vast pharmaceutical potential to promote the local development of medical cannabis.
“We have pharmaceutical labs in Argentina which are in the vanguard in Latin America and other continents too,” she told Perfil.
Sandoval describes Argentina’s pharmaceutical sector as one of the strengths permitting the development of medical cannabis.
“Many policies of the current government are geared to the pharmaceutical research area, thus greatly promoting innovation and development and placing a foot in the global pharmacannabis market,” the local representative of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Cáñamo (LAIHA) told the newspaper.