Colombia will soon become the latest nation to legalize medical marijuana at the federal level, according to multiple press reports.
President Juan Manuel Santos is set to issue an executive decree to both legalize MMJ and set up a groundbreaking national “export license” to ship cannabis products to other countries where it’s legal, such as Canada, Uruguay, and the Netherlands, the International Business Times reported.
Santos, however, made it very clear that the nation is only legalizing marijuana for medical and scientific purposes, and that observers should not construe the decree as a move towards repealing prohibition entirely, which is what Uruguay famously did in 2013 (although Colombians can already possess up to 20 grams of cannabis for personal use). But Santos has long been on record as supporting MMJ legalization.
Regardless, Colombia’s move means that the global cannabis industry and market are only getting bigger.
The exact framework of how Colombia will allow MMJ to be grown, processed and sold is yet to be determined, according to the Pan Am Post.
Let us not forget that extracts of female cannabis flowers–aka marijuana–were already commonly prescribed as medicine by doctors, starting in the mid-1800s, for a wide variety of human ailments. One ignorant man, Harry Anslinger, then zealously foisted upon America and the entire world prohibitive taxation of cannabis plants for all purposes–including medical purposes. Anslinger single-handedly (though with obedient subservience by ‘officials’ and the media) destroyed a giant cannabis industry easily worth tens of billions over the last 80 years. Cannabis fibers, pulp, seeds, leaves and flowers must again fuel our manufacturing, medicine, nutrition and, yes, even recreation. All four of those huge industries should never have been disrupted in a ‘land of the free.’
Freedom ain’t free and neither are we!