According to the latest data from Brazil’s health supervision agency (Anvisa), the number of patients allowed to purchase medical marijuana products from abroad has continued to increase, with about 20000 patients in Brazil having been licensed as of August 2020.
In 2015, Brazil’s health supervision agency (Anvisa) approved CBD oil for the treatment of refractory epilepsy, but it was not allowed to be sold in China. Patients can only import CBD oil from abroad, usually online.
To import CBD oil, patients need to obtain a prescription issued by a doctor, and then apply to Anvisa for authorization. The authorization is renewed once a year and needs to apply again when it expires.
Most medical marijuana prescriptions in Brazil are products with high CBD content, and additional special permission is required if thc exceeds 2%. In most other medical marijuana markets around the world, products with high THC content for the treatment of chronic pain are the mainstream.
In 2020, the number of medical marijuana patients allowed to import in Brazil continued to grow, with more than 1500 for two consecutive months, including new authorizations and expired renewals. Now the term of authorization has been extended from one year to two years.
In December 2019, Brazil’s health supervision agency (Anvisa) passed new regulations on medical marijuana products, allowing domestic production of medical products based on marijuana. CBD drugs made in China can be sold by prescription in any drugstore without special license.
Consumers can buy medical marijuana products in pharmacies, but different prescriptions are needed to buy marijuana products with different thc contents.
If the concentration of THC in the product is less than 0.2%, consumers can buy it through type B prescription; if the concentration of THC in the product is greater than 0.2%, it is only used for terminally ill patients or patients who have exhausted alternative therapy, they can only purchase with type a prescription.
Although Brazil now allows the production of medical products based on marijuana in China, it is still prohibited to grow medical marijuana at home, and CBD drug manufacturers can only import raw materials from abroad.
However, the import of medical hemp raw materials will increase the cost of drugs, resulting in high prices. Brazil’s parliament will vote on a new bill in early September to ease the burden of medical marijuana patients.
If the new law is passed, Brazil will allow domestic cultivation of medical and industrial marijuana, and 80% of Brazil’s farmland is suitable for marijuana crops.
The proposed law aims to allow the domestic supply of raw materials to reduce the burden of treatment for patients, so the bill only allows marijuana associations to grow, not individuals.
According to promotion partners, the market for medical marijuana in Brazil will reach $229.1 million by 2028.
There are no special indications for medical marijuana prescriptions in Brazil, but the General Council of medicine only recommends the use of marijuana products in patients with refractory epilepsy. In April, Prati donaduzzi, a Brazilian pharmaceutical company, was approved to produce an oral solution containing 200 mg of CBD in China for the treatment of epilepsy.
Epidiolex, a CBD based antiepileptic drug developed by GW pharmaceuticals, a British medical marijuana company, was approved by the US FDA in June 2018 for the treatment of epilepsy associated with Lennox Gastaut syndrome (LGS) or Dravet syndrome in patients aged 2 years and above.
In August 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) added a new indication for epidiolex, which allows the treatment of epileptic seizures associated with tuberous sclerosis (TSC) patients aged 1 year and older.
Source link
