By Chaminda Silva

Samastha Lanka Indigenous Medical Association (SLIMA), a local ayurveda medical body yesterday urged the government to ease the laws on cannabis for it to be developed as an herbal drug as in our past for many ailments, which many countries have already done.

Addressing the media at the Sri Sambuddhathwa Jayanthi Mandira complex in Colombo, Adviser to SLIMA former Registrar of Ayurveda Medical Council Dr. Danister L. Perera said that the United Nations had recently reclassified strict control measures applied on the Cannabis plant.

“There have been recent calls for amending the laws here by some persons with an ulterior motive to promote the narcotic use of the plant. It is that campaign now stands as an obstruction to our efforts to have the plant legalised for medical purposes. We too are against the abuse of the medicinal plant as a narcotic. It is high time the government considered relaxing and reintroducing laws pertaining to medicinal use of cannabis in the country. Such measures could pave the way to utilise it for medicinal purposes, as done in Ayurveda for centuries.

Dr. Perera said the United Nations central drug policy making body Commission on Narcotics Drugs (CND) had recently reclassified cannabis from its previous state of strict control measures, that discouraged its use for general medical purposes.

Dr. Perera said on Dec 02 last year 53 member countries of UN-CND had voted to remove cannabis from Schedule IV of 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, where it was listed alongside specific deadly, addictive opioids including heroin, having little to no therapeutic purposes.

“The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs with 53 of its members has recognised cannabis as a plant with various medicinal properties after 59 years, and consented to reclassify it from the list of dangerous drugs, which is a great breakthrough in promoting Ganja for health benefits.

“We know that most countries including ours, draft laws pertaining to drugs, crimes and terrorism under the guidelines and resolutions adopted in the international conventions like the United Nations. Therefore, it is a golden opportunity for the government to reconsider its harsh policies on cannabis preventing it being developed into a multi-million dollar generating industry as a medicinal product.”

Chairman SLIMA Dr. Upul Dela Bandara said many international research had proved that cannabidiol (CBD), the second most prevalent of the active ingredients of cannabis was an essential component in medicinal Marijuana.

He said a number of countries that had legalized the use of plant including several states in India for medicinal purposes earned millions of dollars in foreign exchange by exporting it to the West.

Dr. Bandara questioned why Sri Lanka was not using the opportunity to develop this herbal product, which was grown abundantly in remote areas, to make a steady foreign currency generating industry, as a novel solution for a pandemic hit economy.

Organiser SLIMA Dr. Washington Nanayakkara explained the numerous medicinal properties of the ganja plant, which had been prescribed in Ayurveda treatments for thousands of years and how certain western powers had invented misconceptions regarding cannabis since the early nineteenth century to promote their chemical drugs worldwide.