Association President Says Will Seek Support from Lula After Court Prohibits Cultivation and Production of Cannabis Oil
Following Anvisa's action, Apepi loses the right to cultivate, research, and produce cannabis extracts for therapeutic use by its members
By Leandro Maia
The Association for Support of Research and Patients of Medicinal Cannabis (Apepi) technically lost the right to cultivate, research, and produce cannabis extracts for therapeutic use by its members, according to the decision of the Federal Court of Rio de Janeiro, published on November 8, after an action by Anvisa to prevent the association's activities.
For about 10 years, Apepi has been cultivating cannabis to produce the oil used in cannabinoid therapy. According to President Margarete Brito, Apepi has never had a guaranteed right to carry out its activities and has been in a legal battle with Anvisa since 2019. In 2022, for example, the Court granted an injunction authorizing Apepi to plant the Cannabis sativa plant for extraction and distribution of the oil for therapeutic purposes. However, Brito recalls that this favorable decision remained in force for only three months and once again the association lost this guarantee after an action by the health surveillance agency.
According to Brito, the decision does not change the association's work, which has always been based on the argument of civil disobedience, which is basically a popular action that consists of the explicit disobedience of a certain law. This occurs when a group of citizens believes that a certain law, or simply its absence, produces injustice. Currently, about 8,000 patients with diseases such as epilepsy, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, chronic pain, anxiety, and cancer are assisted by the association.
In a statement, Margarete Brito, president of Apepi, stated that in practice, little has changed. "APEPI continues to operate under the argument of civil disobedience, waiting for the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) to define a regulatory framework for its activities."
"Our fight has never been easy, we have always been behind the State, both at ANVISA and in the Legislative and Judiciary branches, to ask for protection to work in peace, this time the Court sent its message that they will not provide this protection. I am currently on my way to Brasília, we will deliver to Lula a proposal for a decree to regulate the sole paragraph of Article 2 of Law 11,343. We already have a law, we just need a decree and we will succeed. This would be the fastest way," she concluded.
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