The Minister of Productive Development, Matias Kulfas, celebrated the sanction of the law which establishes a regulatory framework for the public and private investment throughout the medical cannabis and industrial hemp chainapproved this Thursday by the Chamber of Deputies, noting that “Today a new industry is born in Argentina”.
“With this law, expands and diversifies the productive matrix national. With this law we all win“, the official emphasized in a thread of tweets published at the end of the session of the Lower House in which, among other projects, this norm was sanctioned.
In this sense, the Minister of Productive Development maintained that, when this regulatory framework becomes law, “a new industry is born in Argentina” because now the country has a “national hemp and medical cannabis industry”.
“I thank the deputies for converting into law one of the productive projects that we promote from @produccion_arg,” said the minister through the social network Twitter.
IT’S LAW
Today a new industry is born in Argentina.
We have a national hemp and medicinal cannabis industry.
I thank the deputies for converting into law one of the productive projects that we have promoted since @production_arg.
I open thread: pic.twitter.com/lWHUGhpUUc
– Matías Kulfas (@KulfasM) May 6, 2022
Besides, Kulfas highlighted that the new law “creates the Federal Council for the Development of the Hemp Industry and Medicinal Cannabis, which will be made up of a representative from the Nation, one from each province and one from CABA, who will carry out their functions in a honorary”.
“The normative also creates the Regulatory Agency for the Hemp and Medicinal Cannabis Industry (Ariccame)a decentralized body that will have administrative, functional, technical and financial autarchy, and that will function within the Ministry of Productive Development,” he stressed.
In this sense, he specified that “the Ariccame will regulate all economic activity of the cannabis production chain for medicinal and industrial use”, and maintained that, “to promote scientific research, Ariccame will have articulation with public universities and scientific and technical organizations throughout the country”.
“To support enterprises, small producers and SMEs, it will work with SePyME on financing programs,” he added.
Similarly, in dialogue with the online radio station Futurock, Kulfas He emphasized that the new regulations are the result of “work and consensus with many sectors of production, civil society and NGOs.”
Besides, remarked that will allow “developing the sector on a scale”, which today is legally only allowed “on a very small scale, for research or very small consumption”.
The official estimated that the law will allow “create nearly 10,000 jobs in a relatively short time and to be able to develop a productive economy in various provinces of the country”.
Meanwhile, from the point of view of the HealthKulfas assured that the norm is going to give him “a concrete answer to many people who need it“.
“The therapeutic capabilities of medicinal cannabis are proven. There are many mothers who know it from their children who use it for epilepsy, and also for a lot of diseases and treatments where it has been shown to really help,” he explained.
In that sense, Kulfas rejected the plot of the deputy of the PRO, Grace Ocanawho in the House, by voting against the bill, questioned that he bureaucratic apparatus of magnitude that is created to implement the law is going to bring an enormous expense and not a benefit for the issue of health“.
“To do it well, to have quality standards and, according to what we have studied from international experiences, it is convenient to have an agencywhich will simplify the bureaucracy because all the areas of the Government will be involved in the same place, with a single window to work the licenses that are requested and control that the adequate quality conditions exist,” he explained.
On the other hand, he maintained that “the expense generated by this is insignificant compared to everything that is going to be generated from economic activity and taxes that are going to be paid.”
The support of the Cannabis Confederation
The Argentine Cannabis Confederation greeted the “historic decision” of the regulation, in the Chamber of Deputies, of the cannabis and hemp production chain, which puts the country “a step forward in the role of the cannabis industry” in Latin America and the world.
In a release signed by its owner, Leandro Ayalathe Confederation, under the title of “A historical fact” greets and congratulates “the deputies who, with the historic decision we have today, achieved the regulation of the Cannabis and Hemp production chain to put our Nation one step forward in the role of the cannabis industry in Latin America and all over the world.”
“Argentina has advanced in recent years with debates on the regulation of cannabis and that is consolidated today with this law. From the Cannabis Confederation we have been promoting favorable legal frameworks for the development of the activity and that is why we celebrate having from now on a legal framework for the development of our industry with special attention to SMEs, and thus, in this way, generate employment for our society and investments for Argentina,” the statement added.
“Starting today in Argentina there is a new way of producing, a new way of developing, a new possibility of working with social advancement for hundreds and thousands of workers”, holds.
“The hemp have numerous benefits for food industrieswelfare, in textiles, in the automotive industry, in the substitution of plastic, in the development of traditional communities and to retain the impacts on soil damaged by radiation”, he specifies.
“There are many possibilities and today we can say that we have fulfilled the dream of Don Manuel Belgrano, so that we recognize ourselves as a country where cannabis can be planted, harvested and cultivated under a legal framework that takes people into account,” he mentions.
On the other hand, the Confederation points out that “the Supreme Court began to debate in recent weeks the need for REPROCANN to guarantee the right to cultivate cannabis and that at the same time that discussion is taking place, growers with this permit continue We need to celebrate, but still, we have to go further until no one else is raided or arrested for growing cannabis in Argentina.”
