Twenty patient associations from across northeastern Brazil are meeting in Fortaleza this month, inside a free three-day arts fair. The agenda item that matters: how to keep supplying patients when every step of the chain, from seed to prescription, sits on unstable ground.
Brazil’s medical cannabis system doesn’t look much like anything in the United States. There are no dispensaries. Patients get access through court authorizations and through nonprofit patient associations that cultivate and supply members, operating in a legal space that shifts with every new regulation and every judge.
From September 18 to 20, roughly twenty of those associations are gathering at the Dragão do Mar Center for Art and Culture in Fortaleza, capital of Ceará, for the second Northeastern Meeting of Cannabic Associations. It runs inside Febre de Arte, a free arts and culture fair now in its second year.
What they’re actually discussing
Two roundtables open the fair on Friday. The first covers associative governance and how associations can partner with each other under RDC 1014, the current Anvisa framework.
The second one is titled, plainly enough, “Insecurity in the routine of associations: from seed to cultivation, from prescription to logistics.” That title is the whole problem in one line. Associations in Brazil operate under constant legal uncertainty at every link, and the northeastern region gets substantially less attention than the wealthier southeast.
Confirmed participants include ABRACAM, Adapta, Verde Ouro, Pangaia, ACAFLOR, Risoflora Medicinal, Terra Livre, Ceará Saúde Livre, IRACEMA, AME-CE and Aliança Medicinal, among others.
The Argentine in the room
Saturday’s talks bring Gabriel Gimenez, former director of ARICCAME, Argentina’s hemp and medical cannabis regulatory agency, and former national federal articulation director at INASE, the country’s seed institute, where he led the creation of Argentina’s national cannabis seed registry.
His …
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Author: High Times / High Times
