Tarcísio sanctions medical marijuana law in the SUS in SP – 01/31/2023 – Health

Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans) sanctioned this Tuesday night (31) the law that provides for the distribution of products based on cannabidiol (CBD), a substance derived from cannabis, in the SUS (Unified Health System) in São Paulo.

The law was approved at Alesp (Legislative Assembly of São Paulo) in December 2022, after three years of the project being processed, and also establishes the distribution of products based on THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), another substance present in marijuana, but in exceptional cases .

After approval by the deputies, a petition with 40 thousand signatures and a letter from the OAB-SP in defense of the proposal pressed for the governor’s sanction.

In a ceremony held at Palácio dos Bandeirantes, the governor said that São Paulo is taking an important step with the law and congratulated the authors of the proposal —among them state deputy Caio França (PSB), who was present. “It’s a great victory,” said Tarcísio.

The governor said that his nephew, diagnosed with Dravet syndrome —which causes severe seizures—, gained quality of life when he started to be treated with cannabidiol.

“You see a child who, instead of playing, is convulsing. Each convulsion takes away a little bit of life”, said the governor. “It’s hard to see a child who has seizures all the time. Parents have to be very resilient. We don’t know why these parents go through this, but God knows.”

“The important thing is that São Paulo will have a public policy dedicated to this medicine”, he added. Now, it is up to the Secretary of Health to regulate the law.

“What we don’t want is for the same thing to happen. [que houve] in other states, where the law has been enacted but is not alive. We are convinced that we are doing the right thing. We want the state of São Paulo to be a pioneer in the application of public policy”, continued the governor.

The ceremony also featured testimony from mothers of children diagnosed with rare syndromes and who showed improvement after treatment with cannabidiol.

One of them is Neide Martins, mother of a young man with West syndrome. She reported that her son had more than 80 seizures a day. With cannabidiol, there was an improvement in the young man’s motor coordination, as well as a drastic reduction in seizures.

“The medicine came to revolutionize our life. It is a joy to see Victor at zero, without epilepsy”, said Martins.

‘Public health issue’

Tarcísio is an ally of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL). Questioned by journalists if the measure could cause friction with the conservative base that elected him, the governor replied that it is not about ideology.

“This is a public health issue. It has nothing to do with being conservative or not. We are talking about people who have Dravet syndrome, West syndrome, multiple sclerosis, who need the active ingredient that ultimately solves the problem of epilepsy, of quality of life. This has nothing to do with philosophical conviction, it has to do with an issue that is very pragmatic, which is to bring hope to a series of families who suffer a lot every day with their loved ones”, he said .

On social networks, Deputy France had already celebrated the sanction of the law.

“Sao Paulo will be at the forefront in supplying medicines based on ÇAnnabis by the SUS for various pathologies. Many families will benefit “, he wrote. And he said that the law is a victory, especially for people diagnosed with autism and rare syndromes, in addition to epileptics and elderly people with Parkinson’s.

When the project (PL 1,180/2019) was approved at Alesp, France highlighted the need to eliminate judicial demands on access to medical marijuana. And he recalled that, despite the possibility of importation, access to cannabidiol extracts and oils remains restricted to the vast majority of the population, as it comes up against high costs and bureaucracy.

The number of lawsuits that seek to oblige the state of São Paulo to supply Cannabis-derived products has grown almost 18 times (about 1,750%) in four years, from 8 in 2015 to 148 in the first half of 2019.

The objective of the new law is to democratize access, especially for the most needy families, without the need for them to go to court to have their right to health guaranteed.

The law is the responsibility of the State Department of Health, which will define the competences at each level of action through the creation of a working commission to implement the guidelines, with the participation of technicians and representatives of non-profit associations that support the research and to patients and their families.