Medical Marijuana, Inc. subsidiary HempMeds® prominently discussed in nation’s most widely read alternative weekly newspaper.
The expansion of HempMeds® into Latin America received coverage in LA Weekly late last week when the weekly paper ran a story on Mexico’s rapidly changing approach to medical cannabis.
Over the past year, the company has exported its products for the first time to Mexico, Paraguay, Argentina, and Chile, adding to Brazil, which HempMeds® expanded into in 2014, creating HempMeds® Brasil. However, it was the company’s local branch, HempMeds® Mexico, that was the focus of LA Weekly’s article, titled “Mexico Begins Importing Medical Marijuana as Views on Therapeutic Cannabis Evolve”.
The LA Weekly article details how HempMeds® and Medical Marijuana, Inc. became involved in Mexico’s grassroots medical marijuana reform movement, helping families and advocates lobby the Mexican government for the right to import CBD oil.
The Mexican government relented, and on February 1, 2016, the Mexican health authority Cofepris awarded CBD oil import certificates for the families of two young girls. However, one of the stipulations was that the CBD oil couldn’t contain any measurable levels of THC, the compound in cannabis that gets users high. To meet these strict regulations, a new zero-THC product was developed for distribution through HempMeds® Mexico, and our THC-free RSHO-X™ was the first cannabis-based product to be imported into Mexico.
The approval of the importation of CBD products was a big first step for the Mexican government toward a more compassionate approach to cannabis policy and a serious blow to the drug trade in the country.
The CEO of Medical Marijuana, Inc., Dr. Stuart Titus was quoted in the piece saying, “Despite the terrible cartel violence, the regulatory authority in Mexico saw the potential for CBD. Today, we remain the only legal, cannabis-based products allowed into the country.”
In the U.S., medical cannabis, in particular CBD oil, has been growing in popularity, enjoying frequent media coverage regarding its benefits. In Mexico, the relationship between cannabis, the Mexican government, and the country’s citizens has been strained, and the therapeutic use of cannabis and cannabinoids is still a forbidden topic in most circles.
Yet things are changing in the country. Unlike in our pharmaceutical obsessed society here in the U.S., doctors in Mexico regularly prescribe homeopathic and alternative treatment options to their patients. That means that the medical use of CBD oil has the potential to escalate all across the country.
This change in attitude towards medical uses of cannabis reaches up through the Mexican government. In the spring, President Peña Nieto was joined onstage by founder of the Por Grace Foundation and tireless CBD oil advocate Raul Elizalde when the Mexican President announced a new direction in their policy toward medical cannabis.
Earlier in December, Mexico’s new medical marijuana law passed the country’s Senate by a vote of 98-7. It now moves on to Mexico’s equivalent to the House of Representatives, the Chamber of Deputies, where it is expected to pass. The law will reclassify both marijuana and CBD hemp oil and allow products containing THC into the country for the first time. This creates the opportunity for HempMeds® Brasil to start exporting the entire RSHO™ product line to the country for the first time.
Keep up to date with events in Mexico and throughout the cannabis industry by following our news feed. Patients in Mexico interested in accessing CBD through HempMeds® Mexico can learn more on their website.
