By Benjie Cooper
IG: @nuglifenews
YouTube: Lucid’s Vlog
The country of Chile has a relationship with cannabis that dates back to the Spanish Conquest in the 1500s when European hemp seeds made their way across the ocean to be sown in the Valparaiso district north of Santiago for the first time. The crops flourished in the country’s temperate climate and continued to be cultivated on farms across the land over the next 400 years. From the fiber produced on hemp farms that once covered much of the nation to the medicinal marijuana tinctures made by locals, cannabis is a rich part of Chile’s heritage.
The cultivation, processing, and sale of hemp remain legal in Chile because the country’s laws recognize the distinction between hemp and THC-rich varieties of the cannabis plant. Because the law treats it differently, hemp is currently grown in the country as it has been for hundreds of years, but the cultivation, transport, and use of recreational cannabis can come with an array of penalties, depending on the situation.
The production, transportation, sale, and public use of marijuana are illegal in the country, but private consumption has been legal since 2005 when the Chilean government decriminalized private consumption after they passed Law 20,000. Minor fines, community service, and rehabilitation program enrollment replaced the previous criminal penalties. This is not to say that the government completely abolished harsher penalties for marijuana infractions; trafficking and non-personal cultivation can still result in years of jail time.
In December 2015, President Michelle Brachelet removed cannabis from the country’s dangerous drugs list. The presidential decree allowed medical marijuana patients to obtain cannabis-derived medicine from a pharmacy and consume it freely without fear of consequences.
Since the removal of cannabis from the dangerous drug list, medical marijuana farms have begun operations in different locations across the country. Authorities opened a farm in Santiago in 2014 for medical and research purposes, and in 2016 Latin America’s largest medical cannabis farm began operations in Colbun, a small town about 170 miles south of the nation’s capital. At the time of the facility’s inauguration, they had already begun the cultivation of 6,900 plants, intended for the roughly 4,000 patients across the country.
In addition to the farming that is happening inside the nation’s borders, medical marijuana products from foreign companies like Tilray are also becoming available at pharmacies in Chile. The Canadian medical cannabis manufacturer announced in February that they had obtained regulatory approval from Canada and Chile to begin exporting products to Chilean pharmacies. Tilray President Brendan Kennedy said the announcement marked “Tilray’s entry into Latin America and expands our international reach to a fourth continent. We are proud to be able to offer patients in need access to high-quality, pharmaceutical-grade medical cannabis products.” The GMP-certified (Good Manufacturing Process) company also exports products to Australia and the European Union.
The Chilean Ministry of Agriculture (SAGE) is awarding medical cannabis cultivation and research licenses not only to domestic firms, but outside entities are gaining the government agency’s approval to take advantage of medical marijuana’s legal status there as well.
In March 2017, Australian cannabis-focused biotech firm, Zelda Therapeutics Ltd announced that, along with top Chilean scientists, they would be launching clinical trial programs in Chile to target eczema and insomnia. In April, the company issued an ASX release stating that they would be working with non-profit group Fundación Daya to expand the program to include autism. Most recently, Zelda announced on September 13 that they were making significant progress in all three areas of research.
Their decision to operate in the country was due to the “efficiency of its legal and regulatory framework, cost effectiveness and its market access into the large South American pharmaceutical market.” They state that “the Chilean government granted permission for the first cannabis crop to be planted for medicinal purposes in 2015, and has subsequently allowed the sale of medicinal cannabis in pharmacies…Zelda has capitalized on this, forming strategic alliances with world-class researchers and physicians, and has access to valuable patient data which will assist in the development of robust clinical trials.”
Hundreds of years ago, cannabis plants made their way across the seas from Spain to be planted and flourish on South American soil. In the modern day, people are crossing the oceans to Chile once again, but their focus is on medical cannabis instead of hemp fiber. With long-standing laws that recognize the difference between hemp and THC-rich cannabis, the Chilean hemp industry has had time to grow and become one of the largest in the world. Now, with a functioning medical marijuana system in the country, Chile is quickly becoming fertile ground for cannabis research.
