Peru

Tue
13
Jun

Mothers in the Drugs Lab – Women in Peru Treating Their Sick Children with Cannabis

Peru’s president has proposed legalising medicinal marijuana after two women found that cannabis oil helped their seriously ill children.

dental technician and mother of four, Ana Alvarez lives in a flat in Lima that she has converted into a cannabis laboratory. It is, she says, for the love of her son that she has become one of Peru’s leading advocates for liberalising drug laws in the conservative country.

Her mission started out as a desperate search for something to alleviate her son Anthony’s multiple daily seizures. Alvarez ended up turning part of her home into an improvised lab and informal medical practice where patients can be prescribed marijuana derivatives as a palliative for terminal illness, cancer or multiple sclerosis. 

Fri
03
Mar

In Peru, mothers rouse support for legalizing medical marijuana

Ana Alvarez, a working mother of two in Lima, never imagined being on the frontlines of a fight for marijuana in conservative Peru.

But a police raid on a makeshift cannabis lab that she and other women started to soothe the symptoms of their sick children has roused support for medical marijuana, prompting President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to propose legalizing it in the latest pivot away from decades-old restrictions on drug use in Latin America.

Alvarez said cannabis oil is the only drug that helped contain her epileptic and schizophrenic son's seizures and psychotic episodes. She and other women in similar situations formed the group Searching for Hope to seek legal backing as they honed techniques for producing the drug.

Tue
28
Feb

People in Latin America Are Starting to Turn Against Outlawing Marijuana

Attitudes in Latin America are shifting away from supporting prohibitionist policies, but they are far from consensus and the policy implications are unclear.

Sentiments in Latin America in favor of outlawing marijuana appear to be undergoing shifts in some countries, according to researchers in Chile and the UK.

A study published the International Journal of Drug Policy found that, in some parts of the region, more than 40% of respondents supported legalizing the drug, while in other, more conservative areas, support remained minimal.

Fri
10
Feb

Peru's Government Proposes to Legalise Medicinal Cannabis

Peru's government says it will present to the opposition-dominated legislature a plan to legalize the medical use of marijuana "for the treatment of serious and terminal illnesses."

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski's administration said Wednesday the plan was developed after police raided a house in a Lima neighborhood where a group of parents grew marijuana to make oil for treating their children suffering from epilepsy and other diseases.

Fri
25
Mar

From cannabis cafes to death row: drugs laws around the world

US

The hardline drug policies adopted during the 1980s in the “war on drugs”, including mandatory minimum sentences for some drug-related crimes, has led to extremely high levels of incarceration in the country. The US has more than 2 million people in its jails – the second highest rate of incarceration per capita in the world – about half of whom were convicted of drugs-related crimes.

Mon
14
Mar

Myths, Moralism, and Hypocrisy Drive the International Drug Control System

In April 2016, the international community will convene for the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS). This event, held two years early due to the urgency of the drug situation and intensity of drug-related violence, presents an opportunity to question the fundamentals of international drug policy. Despite overwhelming evidence that a century-long quest to control human behaviour and drug markets through international treaties and national legislation has failed, there is little expectation of change. The vested interests in retaining the status quo are significant, with sclerosis legitimised through the recurrent exhortation to improve international co-operation.

Wed
20
Jan

The Largest legal cannabis plantation in Latin America is in Chile

Since last December, Chile has legislation permitting the production and sale of products derived from the hemp plant. (Photo: EFE)

Most legal plantations of cannabis in Latin America is neither in Uruguay nor in Mexico nor Peru, but in a rural area of southern 

Mon
16
Nov

Colombia to legalize medical marijuana

LIMA, Peru — Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is expected to issue a decree legalizing the cultivation, commercialization and research of medical marijuana.

He said he will sign the new measure into law this week, marking a bold departure both for his center right administration and for Colombia, a staunch longtime ally of Washington in the war on drugs.

“It has already been scientifically proven that marijuana has many medicinal attributes,” Santos told the BBC.

Sat
14
Nov

Holiday highs: Where can you go to experience legal cannabis?

More and more tourists are travelling to experience the freedom to try cannabis in tolerant countries

The whiff of weed is spreading across the globe as more countries decriminalise the possession of small quantities of cannabis. The Netherlands has always been the Mecca for those seeking a taste of something illicit but you can now travel further in order to indulge in a spliff or a hash cake.

Colorado, where cannabis was legalised three years ago, is already seeing a big growth in tourism. Tax revenues from the now legalised business are adding to the State’s coffers. Canada’s new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and his Liberal party are in favour of legalising marijuana.

Tue
10
Nov

Meet the Peruvian Rasta behind a landmark case for the right to grow weed

LIMA, Peru — “I live in a pacific way. I don’t harm anyone and they have tried to make me a criminal,” says Ernesto Paz as he exhales a thick cloud of smoke.

“They even cut off my dreadlocks by force in jail. When I asked them why, they told me, ‘Your human rights stay outside.’”

Paz, 29, is one of around 100 practicing Rastafarians in Peru. Smoking marijuana is a sacred ritual for him, his way of communing with Jah, as the religion of black liberation founded in Jamaica calls God.

He is taking a landmark case to Peru’s Supreme Court, one that could establish the right of Rastas and other cannabis users here to grow their own pot.

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