First legal medical marijuana planted in Chile
First legal medical marijuana field was planted in Chile Wednesday to help to alleviate pain of cancer patients, RIA Novosti reported.
On the field of 850 square meters (around 9,000 square feet), 850 seeds imported from the Netherlands have been planted in La Florida, a small county outside Santiago, Chilean Radio Cooperativa reported Wednesday.
In September, the Chilean Ministry of Agriculture allowed cultivating marijuana for medical purposes, in particular, to produce an extract for trials involving 200 cancer patients that will start in April 2015. The patients will be given free treatment.
"We can offer free and quality relief to people, who die today in the midst of pain and poverty," La Florida mayor Roberto Carter was quoted as saying by Leaf Science journal in September.
The Chilean experiment is in line with the international tendency to make marijuana usage prohibition less strict for medical purposes.