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Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos signed Tuesday the decree legalizing the cultivation and sale of marijuana for medical purposes, which had been pending for over a month.
"This decree allows licenses to be granted for the possession of seeds, cannabis plants and marijuana," he said, as well as growing, processing, importing and exporting the plant and its derivatives for medical and scientific use.
"It places Colombia in the group of countries that are at the forefront ... in the use of natural resources to fight disease,” he added in a nationally televised address from the presidential palace.
Nevertheless he reassured the country's far-right opposition and the U.S, which has imposed drugs policy on Colombia over past decades, that the measure "does not go against our international commitments on drug control."
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A similar medical marijuana bill is currently being discussed in Congress, and will define crop limits and other production details more precisely. Senator Juan Manuel Galan, who introduced the bill, told AFP it will hopefully be signed into law by June.
Alvaro Uribe, head of the opposition, said the legislation should not be approved, but supported the government's decree to legalize marijuana's medical use, even though Minister of Justice Yesid Reyes confirmed that both initiatives had the same content.Now that the decree had been passed, cultivators can apply for licenses from the National Narcotics Council, and manufacturers from the health ministry.
Colombia—one of the world’s biggest suppliers of cocaine, home to some of the most organized drug cartels, and the epicenter of the violent so called “war on drugs” —decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana and cocaine for personal use in 2012.
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