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Top court again rejects legalization of medicinal cannabis
Constitutional Court rejects the second petition seeking the legalization of the medicinal usage of cannabis, arguing that Indonesia has insufficient research and regulation on the matter.
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Illustration of hands holding marijuana leaves. (Shutterstock/Mahony)
H
ealth experts have urged the government to take the global scientific evidence on medicinal marijuana more seriously following a Constitutional Court rejection of the latest petition seeking to legalize cannabis for the treatment of disease.
In a ruling issued on Wednesday, the court rejected a petition for a judicial review of the 1976 ratification of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, concluding that there was a lack of comprehensive research evidence to support the medicinal cannabis legalization.
The plaintiffs, Pipit Sri Hartanti and Supardji, are parents of a child with cerebral palsy who sought the substance’s legalization as an alternative treatment to treat the condition.
They brought a new finding from the World Health Organization (WHO) that recommended removing cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which categorizes substances that have little or no therapeutic purposes.
Cannabis is now included in Schedule I among other substances that are highly addictive, liable to abuse or convertible into addictive drugs in the WHO’s list.
Read also: Mothers of cerebral palsy children fight for medical marijuana
But the court rejected the petitioners, stating that Indonesia had submitted a different position to the WHO’s recommendation, in which the government warned that the harm from using cannabis and related substances outweighed the benefits.
