Medical Cannabis Alert – December 2019

Information serving as a guidance for medical treatment using Cannabis

The Ministry of Health (MINSA) published scientific information as a reference data and a guidance for physicians prescribing medical and therapeutic Cannabis.

The document includes information about scientific evidences of the use of medical Cannabis in some clinical indications as pain management, nausea and vomiting resulting from chemotherapy, refractory epilepsy and spasticity in multiple sclerosis. Likewise, it states that physicians can prescribe other indications not being specified in the document under their own responsibility.

Said technical document serving as a guidance for medical treatment using Cannabis was approved by Ministerial Order No. 1120-2019/MINSA dated December 10, 2019, pursuant to Section 22 of the regulation of the Medical Cannabis Act.

The technical document includes the relevant information below:

• Gathering of scientific evidences of the use of medical Cannabis available as of October 2019.
• Information extracted from repositories and biomedical database like Medline, Epistemonikos and Dynamed.
• Reference of cannabis-based medical products with international approval for the first time: United States and Spain. Details about trade name, packaging, indications, regulatory agency, and year of approval.
• Upon reference review by the health authority, some scientific evidences of the use of medical Cannabis were found in some clinical indications such as: pain management, nausea and vomiting resulting from chemotherapy, refractory epilepsy and spasticity in multiple sclerosis.

MINSA is committed to promote dissemination of new evidences from national and international researches related to the use of therapeutic Cannabis in order to keep the user population, patients and families informed.

Click  here to read the document.