Villafuerte hoping for swift Senate OK of medical cannabis bill

Rep. LRay Villafuerte

MANILA, Philippines – National Unity Party (NUP) president LRay Villafuerte is hopeful that a United Nations (UN) commission’s official recognition of the medical value of cannabis oil (cannabidiol or CBD) will prompt the Senate to follow the lead of the House of Representatives in passing proposed legislation allowing Filipinos stricken with cancer, epilepsy and other severe ailments to use this non-addictive marijuana strain as an alternative treatment for their painful maladies.

Alongside this declaration by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND)—the UN’s drug policy-making body—Villafuerte hoped that senators would also give weight to the fact that medical cannabis has already been legalized in 60 countries and that its medicinal value has been affirmed in medical journals of various prominent global institutions.

READ: House passes medical cannabis bill on second reading

These medical journals include those of Harvard Health, National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), American Academy of Neurology (AAN), and British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (BJCP).

Among the therapeutic  benefits cited in these top medical journals are the efficacy  of medical cannabis in decreasing chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting, improving appetite, and reducing  patient-reported multiple sclerosis spasticity symptoms.

The 60 countries that have legalized medical cannabis include Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel and the United Kingdom (UK).

As the Senate deliberates on its version of the House-approved measure delisting CBD from the list of prohibited drugs under Republic Act (RA) No. 9165, Villafuerte is hoping that the recognition by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) of the non-addictive therapeutic benefits of medical cannabis will convince most senators to finally give their nod to this proposal that has long been pending in the Congress.

“With the House’s third and final approval of HB 10439 in the previous legislative  session, what we only need now is for our senators to act on their counterpart measure, in the hope that we can come up with  an enrolled bill for submission to, and enactment into law by, President Marcos this third and final session of the 19th Congress,” said Villafuerte, a lead author of HB 10439 and  longtime advocate of the legalization of CBD strictly for medical purposes only.

“I am more upbeat that the Congress will be able this time around to finally write a law allowing qualified patients with debilitating diseases to use CBD as an alternative treatment for their afflictions, hoping that the UN CND’s recognition of non-addictive CBD will convince most of our senators to pass their measure (Senate Bill or SB No. 2573) legalizing medical cannabis,” Villafuerte said.

Villafuerte said that Committee Report (CR) No. 210, which endorsed  for plenary discussions SB 2573 that was principally authored by Sen. Robinhood Padilla, is likely to win majority support as it was already  signed by 13 senators in the second regular session of the 19th Congress.

The CND, which is the drug policy-making body of the UN, has reclassified medical cannabis from the international listing  where it was originally  classified with heroin, fentanyl analogus and other opioids as substances harmful to public health.

Villafuerte noted that the CND decision was based on the recommendation of the 41st Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) of the World Health Organization (WHO) to reclassify medical cannabis because it was found to have no potential for abuse of, or to case dependence among, humans.

After a formal review of cannabis and cannabis-related substances, the ECDD said that it actually had significant health benefits for treatment-resistant epilepsy, and therefore should not be placed under international control, he said.

Both HB 10439 and SB 2573 propose the creation of a Medical Cannabis Office (MCO) to oversee the licensing and use of CBD oil for medical purposes.

Alongside its benefit as an alternative medical treatment for certain diseases, Villafuerte said that HB 10439 clears the way to the establishment of a new industry on the production and trade of CBD oil products in the highly lucrative global market for medical cannabis.

Villafuerte explained that he has pushed since the past Congresses the legalization of CBD because this oil is non-addictive and  is different from tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is another active ingredient of cannabis sativa that has  intoxicating or psychoactive qualities that produce the “high” or buzz for those who smoke or eat it.

“And because it is non-addictive, CBD oil has been proven safe for use by qualified patients as a painkiller or relaxant  to alleviate their agonizing conditions like migraines, epilepsy, auto-immune diseases, multiple sclerosis and end-stage cancer, Villafuerte said.

Villafuerte’s earlier legislative proposals on the legalization of CBD oil for medical purposes were passed on third and final reading by the House in the 17th Congress, and approved at the House committee’s technical working group (TWG) level in the 18th Congress.

But Villafuerte’s bills got stuck in the House in both instances in the absence of counterpart bills passed by the Senate.

As he had pointed out in one of the House joint committee hearings on the proposed CBD legalization bill, Villafuerte said that while health regulations exist on the compassionate use of medical marijuana for treatment of certain diseases, applying for the importation and local medical use of CBD products was so tedious for applicants.

Moreover, CBD oil products are expensive abroad such  that poor patients  in the Philippines are unlikely to afford them, he said.

He stressed, however, that under the House-passed substitute bill, only CBD will be legalized, as marijuana  will remain on the DDB’s list of dangerous drugs under RA 9615.

During a House joint committee hearing last August 2023, Villafuerte asked Director Jesusa Joyce Cirunay of the FDA Center for Drug Regulation and Research on how many CSPs have been issued by the agency, and Cirunay replied: “We have only one CSP.”

During the Commission on Appointments (CA) hearing last September 2023 on his posting as DOH chief, Secretary Teodoro Herbosa revealed that he supported the legalization of the medical use of CBD.

Herbosa had confirmed to Villafuerte, “There is a compassionate use permit given by the FDA, pero ito po ay napakahirap, kasi ire-request pa ng isang doktor sa FDA yung paperwork bago ma-import ‘yung medical cannabis.”

Villafuerte told Herbosa and the CA  that the US FDA has already approved medicines that contain cannabis, such as Epidiolex, Sativex, Sinemet and Marinol.

Under the House-approved bill, “debilitating medical conditions”  include cancer, multiple sclerosis, damage to the nervous system, glaucoma.