In disagreement with the sanction of the law that prohibits vaporizers and other devices without combustion, is the Medicinal Cannabis Association of Panama (ACAPAN), as they assure that it is incompatible with the recently approved Law that regulates medicinal cannabis.
According to Gabriel Menasche, spokesperson for APACAN “…on the one hand, we want to provide a clinical solution to patients with diseases that are not effectively treatable with traditional medications, and on the other hand, we will prohibit these same patients from the most optimal route of administration which is the pulmonary pathway.
He stressed that it is important that the vaporized route of administration be explored in more detail and issues related to it demystified.
They requested a legislative debate with greater consultation regarding the restriction of the use of vaporizers by ensuring that public health policies should be the product of an open, transparent and science-based discussion, but mainly with patients as beneficiaries.
According to the association, vaporization in itself is not the cause of the problems that have been seen in the United States related to lung conditions. It is important to clarify that the serious lung effects that were seen in that country had their origin in the consumption, at a certain time in 2019, of liquids to vaporize cannabis adulterated with vitamin E acetate, which is not made to be vaporized.
Menasche added that “the problem of vitamin E acetate, which caused the condition called EVALI in the United States, was an isolated event that only affected certain places in that country and was not reported in any other country in the world”, in addition, Menasche stressed, “this condition was also an isolated event in time, since after the reports in 2019, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has not reported any additional cases” “We cannot make laws based on fear, bans are the path of least resistance to issues that need to be properly regulated and supervised.
The ban will only bring lack of control of what Panamanian patients consume and an unacceptable lack of supervision by the Ministry of Health”, concluded Menasche.
“From the Medicinal Cannabis Association we observe that countless technologies are being developed at the international level for the administration of cannabis by the pulmonary route, and with a local policy of prohibition of electronic cannabis administration systems, the use of these technologies to local patients, this route of administration being duly authorized and regulated in countries with high public policy standards”, they highlighted in a statement.
