Why national cannabis growers are interested in the presidential veto on the law regulating the use of medical cannabis in Costa Rica

The president, even by global standards of a small Central American country, uses data to argue his position, indicating the negative impact of the psychoactive components of the hemp plant on people's health. Given the above, I would like to ask a rhetorical question, how in the course of lobbying for the relevant legislation in our country, similar materials that are available in the public domain are taken into account / studied.

The editors of the specialized electronic edition of national hemp growers pay little attention to trends that take place in non-key global hemp markets. Therefore , we only briefly mentioned “The Future of Medical Cannabis in Costa Rica ” in 2016. However, the reasoned position of the President of the country on a specific issue related to certain aspects of modern cannabis should be of interest to our esteemed readers and listeners.

The president of a small Central American country, Carlos Andres Alvarado Quesada, has vetoed a law passed by the country's legislature that regulates the use of the hemp plant for medical purposes. The main leitmotif of his act, the head of the executive branch of Costa Rica indicates the unwillingness to endorse the legal act, which regulates the "home" cultivation of psychoactive cannabis.

Explaining his act in one of the social networks, the President of Costa Rica indicated that despite the fact that he generally supports the need to regulate the possibilities for the use of cannabis therapeutic properties for medical purposes, he is categorically against individual cultivation, as well as the use of plants that have significant psychoactive properties. However, his negative attitude towards the possibility of permitting the cultivation, as well as the use of psychoactive cannabis in individual farms, does not in any way affect the provisions of the bill regarding the possibilities for working with industrial varieties of plants in private households. Those. The President of Costa Rica is in favor of abolishing the home cultivation of psychoactive cannabis in the draft law, however, part of the legal document regarding the possibilities for the widespread use of industrial hemp by citizens of the country should remain in the legal act proposed to him for signing in the form in which it is currently presented. According to the President of Costa Rica, he will put his signature under this legal act only in the event that novelties regulating the legal possibility of cultivation, as well as the use of psychoactive cannabis in individual farms, are removed from the text of the document.

Explaining his attitude to the unwillingness to regulate the possibility of individual cultivation, as well as the use of psychoactive hemp in the country, the President of Costa Rica referred to the data provided to him, which indicate the negative impact of the psychoactive component of the hemp plant on the health of the country's citizens, as well as a possible deterioration in the state of public security.

Commentary of the specialists of the Association “Ukrainian Industrial Hemp”

In October 2021, the Costa Rica Congress passed a law regulating the production and processing of cannabis for medical purposes, including by citizens of the country. It is unlikely that we will ever know that Mr. Quesada's presidential veto is due to a desire to prevent the massive negative impact of the psychoactive components of the hemp plant on the health of the country's citizens or lobbying for the interests of large pharmaceutical companies trying to block the ability of citizens of Costa Rica to obtain the therapeutic properties of the plant "with own vegetable gardens”, and not from pharmacy shelves. The key to this issue is the fact that the president, even by global standards of a small Central American country, uses data to argue his position, indicating the negative impact of the psychoactive components of the hemp plant on people's health. Given the above, I would like to ask a rhetorical question, how in the course of lobbying for the relevant legislation in our country, similar materials that are available in the public domain are taken into account / studied.