Adaya Gonzalez
Madrid (EFE) of 23J, nobody considers it as a real possibility.
On June 21, 2022, the congressional subcommittee created “ad hoc” the previous year to study the regulation of cannabis for therapeutic purposes, gave the green light to an opinion – ratified without changes a week later in the Health Commission -, with a battery of recommendations that should serve as a basis for the Ministry of Health to develop a regulatory plan.
After listening to 23 national and international experts and intense negotiations, the groups -except PP and Vox, who voted against, and ERC and EH Bildu, who abstained- agreed to limit cannabis as a therapeutic complement for chronic pain -also neuropathic -, cancer pain, endometriosis, the spasticity of multiple sclerosis, some forms of epilepsy and nausea and vomiting derived from chemotherapy.
The opinion was a first step, but it left many doubts about how many patients could benefit and how and where they could access the new treatments.
Thus, it prioritized dispensing, always under medical prescription, preferably from a specialist, in hospital pharmacies, although it opened a window to “exploring the alternative” of community ones.
In the same way, the document spoke of extracts or standardized preparations, but at the last minute it included a mention of the possibility of evaluating the buds or “preparations of another type that are available in EU countries” to develop experimental projects “when requested ”.
The AEMPS report is still under review
The Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (Aemps), dependent on Health, was the body designated by the parliamentary groups to prepare a report that would fit all this and guarantee the availability in the pharmaceutical market of standardized preparations of this substance. They gave him six months to do so, until the end of December 2022.
Almost another six months later, “the draft of the roadmap on the legal reserve for the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes that Aemps has prepared is being reviewed by other departments of the Ministry of Health with competences in this area for their consideration and gathering their comments”, they point out to Efe from the department that José Miñones now heads.
Recently, in his first appearance before the Health Commission, the minister apologized for the delay, which he blamed on “excess zeal” to guarantee the safety of patients, and promised to present his proposal to the Chamber before it may end.
But the electoral advance arrived, with the consequent dissolution of the Cortes, and now in Health they indicate that “parliamentary processing may be resumed when the chambers are reconstituted.”
The PNV will continue to insist
Parliamentary sources consulted by Efe explain that, since it is not a bill, but rather a series of recommendations that do not require further parliamentary processing, neither the opinion nor the report made by Aemps, they decay, and it is in the hand of the Government – of the current one, which would still be on time, or of the one that comes – to assume it, park it or bury it.
In March, the PNV, which promoted the creation of the subcommittee and has been repeatedly interested in the state of the situation, asked the Ministry of Health in writing to send it the Aemps report, a request that was not met.
Sources from the Basque group consider that the electoral call has been “another jug of cold water” for the regulation of medicinal cannabis and that it is added to a series of facts that show that it has not existed, neither by the Government nor by the PSOE, a “real will” to advance in this matter.
And although they stress that “we would still be on time”, they acknowledge that they have lost all hope. Even so, they plan to continue insisting.
pain can’t wait
Beyond the political debate, scientific societies are committed to giving cannabis a medicinal use; During its XIX National Congress at the end of May, the Spanish Pain Society (SED) once again advocated regulating it to mitigate, among other things, chronic neuropathic and oncological pain, as some studies suggest that it can reduce it by 30% in the short term. or even more.
Nine years of struggle later, and resigned to the fact that there will be no news before 23J and until long after, the patients can only hope that they do not have to start all over again and that this matter “is a priority” for the new Ministry of Health, says dejected Carola Pérez, president of the Spanish Observatory of Medicinal Cannabis.
“In the same way that the production of medical cannabis for patients in Europe is increasing, we think that all these products should reach Spanish patients first,” who continue to be plunged into “legal and health uncertainty,” he laments.
The scientific evidence, he continues, “is the same in all countries.” “We have the opportunity to learn from their programs and to create the best possible model for the good of patients, and for doctors to be able to prescribe, help and accompany people who are suffering so much. The pain cannot wait ”, ditch.