The police arrested Ardian for owning and growing hydroponic cannabis that, he claimed, was used to relieve symptoms of epilepsy. The Surabaya District Court eventually found him guilty of violating the Narcotics Law and sentenced him to six years in prison.

By filing a petition, he hoped the Constitutional Court would provide a legal interpretation of the Narcotics Law that would allow people to legally grow and consume marijuana for medical treatments.

But his hope was shattered on Thursday, when the court rejected the petition and refuted Ardian’s argument that the provisions on cannabis in the 2009 Narcotics Law were unclear.

During a ruling hearing in Jakarta on Thursday, Constitutional Court justice Aswanto said there was no confusion about the definition of the word “tree” in the Narcotics Law as argued by the plaintiff.

Read also: Up in smoke: Ministry to revoke marijuana’s designation as ‘medicinal plant’

In his petition, Ardian argued that the definition of “tree” as stipulated in Article 111 and Article 114 paragraph 2 of the law was unclear, therefore causing a legal disparity.

When the police arrested Ardian in his house in Surabaya, they found at least 27 cannabis plants in his house. The height of each plant varied from 3 to 40 centimeters.

Ardian and his legal team argued that Gadjah Mada University’s Forestry Department in Yogyakarta defined a "tree" as a plant with an elongated stem or trunk and at least 5 meters tall, and that therefore, the cannabis plant found in his house could not be classified as a “tree”.

Article 111 prohibits any individuals from planting, growing, possessing and providing type-1 narcotics, while Article 114 restricts any person from carrying out or facilitating transactions for more than five trees of a type-1 narcotic in the form of a plant. The law, which is one of the world’s strictest drug regulations, classifies cannabis as a type-1 narcotic.

“There’s no confusion about the general interpretation of trees, although sometimes it doesn’t fit with the botanical description of a plant,” Aswanto said at Thursday’s hearing, as quoted by kompas.com.

He added that the plaintiff’s argument that there was a legal disparity due to the lack of interpretation of the word was “baseless”.

Ardian’s petition was not the only one pertaining to cannabis use in medical treatment. In November, three women demanded a revision of Article 6 paragraph 1 of the 2009 Narcotics Law, which classifies cannabis as a type-1 narcotic. The law also ruled out its use for medical purposes.

Read also: A mother's grief: What it may take for Indonesia to legalize medical marijuana

The three women -- Dwi, Santi and Novia -- filed the petition as they had been struggling to get access to marijuana to treat their sick children. They were informed that cannabidiol (CBD) oil extracted from marijuana plants could help treat their children’s disease.

But the preliminary hearings for the petition had barely begun when Dwi’s son Musa Bin Hassan Pedersen died on Dec. 26 after his condition deteriorated as a result of breathing difficulties and hypoxia.

Musa had had pneumonia since he was 40 days old and underwent cannabis therapy in Australia for a month in 2016 which, according to Dwi, caused a significant improvement in his health. (dpk)