Chile is Now Selling Cannabis in Pharmacies

Chile is now officially the first country in South America to sell cannabis in pharmacies.

According to The Santiago Times, the cannabis pharmacy pilot program was launched last weekend. Pharmacies in Santiago, which is the capital of Chile, will sell T100 and TC100 cannabis medicine to help treat chronic relief. Most sales will cost about $310 for a treatment, which is the price for a single month’s worth of product.

Before this new program was implemented, the only place for Chilean medical cannabis patients to obtain product was from a limited number of import farms, which were all set up through charity organizations. So far, Chileans cannot grow their own cannabis, but a bill is currently being considered that would allow home cultivation as well.

These products are all being financed by Alef Biotechnology from Chile and Tilray from Canada. The program is also being supervised by the Chilean National Health Institute.

“By importing Tilray’s medical cannabis products to Chile we intend to ease the suffering of those in need by offering pure, precise and predictable medical cannabis products,” Alef Board President Roberto Roizman said in an official statement, according to Business Insider.

According to Robert Roizman, president of Alef Biotechnology, the program will be reviewed in six months so that a determination can be made. If all goes well, the medical products can be produced in Chile instead of Canada.

Medical cannabis has been legal in Chile since 2015, and this foray into medical cannabis in pharmacies represents one of the first of these kind of experiments in the world so far. The pilot program was launched last Wednesday, and so far the product is sold in two pharmacies in Santiago.