Debate on legalizing marijuana
THE debate is heating up on whether to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes. This, following the approval of House Bill 6517: An Act Providing Compassionate and Right of Access to Medical Cannabis and Expanding Research and for Other Purposes. Voting 163-5-3, House members approved the bill on third and final reading.
The bill is seeking to legalize the use of marijuana to benefit patients suffering from debilitating medical conditions. The bill defines this as any disease causing wasting syndrome, severe and chronic pain, severe nausea, seizure including those characteristic of epilepsy, or severe and persistent muscle spasms. Former president and now House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo supported the measure as she admitted using marijuana patches to ease pain whenever she visited a country where medical cannabis was legal.
President Duterte himself also endorsed the bill. Department of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said using medical marijuana for research purposes was already allowed under the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. But the Dangerous Drugs Board must prescribe the implementing guidelines for the proper cultivation, culture, handling, experimentation and disposal of these plants and materials. But under the same law marijuana is still listed as an illegal drug.
What are the provisions of the proposed bill? A patient is qualified to use medical marijuana if he or she is diagnosed as having a debilitating disease and who, upon the doctor’s evaluation, should receive “therapeutic or palliative benefits” from the medical use of cannabis. The qualified patient will have the right to choose the type of medicine and health care services that he or she will receive to alleviate the medical condition.
Under the proposed measure, medical cannabis compassionate centers will be created to acquire, possess, deliver, transfer, transport, sell, supply and dispense marijuana to qualified patients.
Okay, reading the silent provisions of the proposed measure, there is strict monitoring from concerned government agencies like the DOH from cultivation, transport, sale and supply of the plants before these reach the qualified patient. But how sure are we that this will be strictly implemented and followed so the medicine reaches the hands of truly qualified patients?
Take for example the case of Nubain ampules. Nubain is also a prescribed and regulated drug because it has medical benefits, especially as a pain reliever. It was approved for marketing in the US in 1978. But look, drug users are using Nubain to satisfy their addictive needs through injection. Some supplies end up in jails. Meaning, there is a total failure in monitoring of the transport, sale and supply of Nubain. I am afraid the same scenario will happen once the use of medical marijuana is legalized.
The proposed bill is silent on the cultivation aspect. Who are allowed to plant and cultivate these plants? Is anybody, especially farmers in the mountain barangays, allowed to plant and cultivate without proper monitoring from agencies concerned? Well, this will attract livelihood for our farmers. Instead of planting rice, corn and other agricultural crops, they will shift to planting marijuana.
Also, like any other illegal business, which is used as a milking cow of corrupt government agents, this will also be used by corrupt physicians for their money-making venture. In what way? If a non-qualified patient is arrested, he will just ask a medical certificate from a physician for a fee or bribe the doctor so he will be issued a medical certificate that allows him to use marijuana.