Lawmakers in Peru have voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill to legalize medical marijuana, allowing cannabis oil to be locally produced, imported and sold.
With a vote of 68-5, Peru’s Congress approved the bill which will be written into law in 60 days, once regulations for producing and selling cannabis have been set out.
Alberto de Belaunde, a governing party lawmaker and advocate of the proposal, said: “We’ve ensured that thousands of patients and their family members will enjoy a better quality of life.”
“This is a historic moment and my dream is that empathy and evidence can continue to defeat fears and prejudices,” he told the Guardian.
“This was not an abstract debate, it had a human face,” he added.
The legislative approval followed a government proposal to decriminalize the medical use of marijuana for the “treatment of serious and terminal illnesses” after a police raid in February on a makeshift laboratory where a group of mothers made marijuana oil for their sick children.
After Colombia, Peru is the largest producer of coca, the leaf used to make cocaine, and it has a thriving illegal drug trade. It is now the sixth country or territory in Latin America to legalize the use of cannabis in some form.
The medicinal use of cannabis oil is now legal in Peru’s neighbours Colombia and Chile as well as in Puerto Rico. In Uruguay, marijuana cultivation and use is permitted in all its forms.
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