Panama has adopted medical hashish laws, after changing into the primary Central American nation to legalize medical hashish in October 2021, pursuant to Regulation 242. The laws take the type of a decree issued by President Laurentino Cortizo Cohen, which “regulates the use and entry to the product and its derivatives, for therapeutic, medical, veterinary, scientific and analysis functions all through the nation.”
The brand new laws set up tasks for various authorities companies, primarily the Well being Ministry and the Ministry of Agricultural Growth. Import and export actions require approval for the Nationwide Directorate of Pharmacies and Medication.
As well as, the decree lists the well being circumstances for which the usage of medical hashish use could also be approved. Any physician licensed in Panama can prescribe hashish, supplied they’ve been licensed by the Well being Ministry as having acquired specialised coaching. The decree additionally establishes a affected person registry.
A second decree issued by President Cortizo Cohen establishes the Nationwide Directorate for the Monitoring of Actions Associated to Medicinal Hashish (Dirección Nacional para el Monitoreo de las Actividades Relacionadas con el Hashish Medicinal), which might be below the supervision of Panama’s Ministry of Public Security and draw workers from quite a few legislation enforcement companies.
Amongst different duties, the directorate is tasked with establishing “the security necessities for the dealing with, transportation, storage and site of the areas and buildings that might be used to fabricate or perform scientific analysis on medicinal hashish.” It is usually answerable for issuing licenses for medical hashish manufacturing, in addition to setting out the safety protocols for such actions.
With the issuance of laws, Panama now has a full authorized framework in place for medical hashish. It’s hoped that the nation’s expertise will spur additional reform in Central America. In actual fact, lower than a yr after the signing of Regulation 242, medical hashish was legalized in neighboring Costa Rica, the place regulations will quickly go into impact.