A SENIOR congressman is optimistic that the Senate will soon pass the medical cannabis bill that has been ratified by the House of Representatives.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte said the United Nations (UN) official recognition of the medical value of cannabis oil (cannabidiol or CBD) bolstered his expectations that the Senate would follow the lead of the House in approving the measure allowing people stricken with cancer, epilepsy and other severe ailments to use this non-addictive marijuana strain as an alternative treatment for their painful maladies.
In light of the declaration by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND)—the UN’s drug policy-making body—Villafuerte expressed hopes that the senators would also give weight to the fact that medical cannabis has already been legalized in 60 countries and that its medicinal value has been affirmed in medical journals of various prominent global institutions.
These medical journals include those of Harvard Health, National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), American Academy of Neurology (AAN), and British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (BJCP).
Among the therapeutic benefits cited in these top medical journals are the efficacy of medical cannabis in decreasing chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting, improving appetite, and reducing patient-reported multiple sclerosis spasticity symptoms.
The 60 countries that have legalized medical cannabis include Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, and Great Britain.
As the Senate deliberates on its version of the House-approved measure excluding CBD from the list of prohibited drugs under Republic Act 9165, Villafuerte was confident that the recognition by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) of the non-addictive therapeutic benefits of medical cannabis will convince most senators to finally give their nod to this proposal that has long been pending in Congress.
“With the House’s third and final approval of HB 10439 in the previous legislative session, what we only need now is for our senators to act on their counterpart measure, in the hope that we can come up with an enrolled bill for submission to, and enactment into law by, President Marcos this third and final session of the 19th Congress,” said Villafuerte, a lead author of HB 10439 and long-time advocate of the legalization of CBD strictly for medical purposes only.
“I am more upbeat that the Congress will be able this time around to finally write a law allowing qualified patients with debilitating diseases to use CBD as an alternative treatment for their afflictions, hoping that the UN CND’s recognition of non-addictive CBD will convince most of our senators to pass their measure (Senate Bill or SB No. 2573) legalizing medical cannabis,” Villafuerte said.
