Policy likely for legal plantation of cannabis

Our Correspondent

Hamirpur, March 9

The cannabis production will be a boon for patients suffering from diseases like cancer and AIDS. This was stated by Ram Lal Markanda, Technical Education Minister, here today.

The minister said the government was in the process of formulating a policy for starting legal cultivation of cannabis in the state. He said that he had been to European countries to study cannabis cultivation and had suggested the government to consider its legal cultivation. He said that medicines produced using cannabinoids had miraculous properties to provide relief to cancer and AIDS patients.

Markanda said the cannabis produced for the medicinal purpose was different from the wild cannabis. Medicinal produce of cannabis would enable the country to produce lifesaving drugs that were otherwise imported at a very high cost and were out of reach of the common man. He said the country was importing over 1,000 tonnes of cannabis from China while medicines were imported from European countries.

He said that Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur was himself monitoring every aspect of the policy for cannabis cultivation and wanted to plug every loophole before finalizing the policy.

He said that legalised cultivation of cannabis would not only improve economy of the state but it would enable state to clear all debts in a few years. The policy would attract investment worth crores in pharma industry. He dismissed suggestions that this could encourage illegal production.

“Why would anyone go for illegal production when one would get better cost for legal production”, he added.