BAGUIO CITY – Researchers in the region will recommend to the Cordillera Region Health Research and Development Consortium (CRDHC) the conduct of an indepth study relative to the medical benefits of marijuana which could serve as reference for future legislations.
Assistant regional director Rowena Madarang of the Cordillera office of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-CAR) said that they will try to bring to the consortium the possibility of considering the medical benefits of marijuana as one of the extensive researches that could be funded by the inter-agency committee to address long standing issues on whether or not locally produced marijuana will be beneficial to the sensitive requirements of terminal cancer patients and individuals who acquired life-threatening ailments.
The CRHRDC is part of the Philippine national Research System (PNHRS), an inter-agency research convergence mandated to conduct researches on health in the different parts of the country.
Earlier, Chairman Reinaldo A. Bautista, Jr. of the Regional Advisory Council of the Police Regional Office – Cordillera (PRO-COR) insinuated to police and anti-narcotics officers the need to provide a leeway for the conduct of the appropriate research that will be undertaken by health experts to ascertain the medical benefits of marijuana and that the combined operatives must provide the researchers samples of marijuana from the contraband that have been seized during their series of operations around the marijuana-producing areas in the different parts of the region.
Madarang explained that they had been hearing about the medical benefits of locally produced marijuana but there had been no studies that were conducted in the past that will confirm whether or not marijuana is a good medicine for individuals who have contracted life-threatening illnesses, thus, the need for the consortium to include the medical benefits of marijuana as one of the priority areas for research.
While it is true that marijuana has a good medical benefit to cancer patients based on the studies done overseas, the DOST-CAR official claimed the country has to have its own research on the matter to ascertain whether or not the marijuana produced in the hinterlands in the Cordillera has its medical benefit which could be used to justify the passage of a legislation that will regulate the production of marijuana in the country purposely for medicinal use only.
Initially, Benguet Gov. Crescencio Pacalso expressed his support for the passage of a legislation that will allow the limited production of marijuana in the country which will strictly be used for medical purposes aside from empowering concerned government agencies to strictly monitor the cultivation of the medical hemp to prevent the commercialization of the same.
He claimed that marijuana-producing communities in Benguet could be tapped as the production areas of marijuana once there will be a law that will allow the limited production of marijuana which will be solely intended for medical purposes.
Law enforcers claimed that marijuana being produced in the region is considered to be high grade compared to those grown in other parts of the country, thus, its medicinal properties could also be greater that is why it is being patronized by individuals with lif-threatening ailments. By HENT
Banner photo by PDEA-CAR
