As the 2018 political campaign ran, the leaders of the Citizen Action Party (PAC), now in government, presented the most to the public as the “progressive” option.
Millions of people in the country were inclined towards this option because they conceived that their ideals about an inclusive, modern, and rights-protecting society were being represented by President Alvarado’s political rallies and speeches.
Alvarado is a journalist and writer, but above all a politician. Moreover, his image supposedly represented a renewal of the national policy that the founders of that party were talking about for almost a decade. To win those elections, campaign strategists opted to include progressive civil society groups that would eventually give him the win in the election. One such group was the vast majority that is in favor of regulating medicinal cannabis, for adult use and hemp for industrial use.
Some of the debates that were televised Alvarado were in favor of opening the discussion on the legalization of medicinal uses of cannabis and production. When he arrived in government, he had his former health minister Giselle Amador resign months after opening a commission within the important ministry to begin discussion on the subject.
Also, in the president’s accountability at the Legislative Assembly in August 2020, he announced that his government would support industrial hemp production. Finally, this project was truncated when the Ministry of Agriculture appeared to grow non-hemp cannabis strains. The authorities warned of this matter, and the Ministry of Health proceeded with the order of the Public Prosecutor’s Office that the harvest of these plants would have to be destroyed.
The “mistake” of agriculture minister Renato Alvarado and the directors of the INTRA torpedoed – again – all the few opportunities this issue had for the country. Another sign of the inoperability of some of the public institutions and the lack of experts in these “dialogues” or business attempts with hemp.
Carlos Alvarado’s inconsistencies
The president did not mention a word on this issue during his accountability speech this 2021. Nor did he support any law initiative that included the regulation or legalization of cannabis proposed by Deputy Zoila Volio or José María Villalta. More than that, the president has detached 100% of this issue.
Will it be afraid of the prosecution? Have you received any threat for supporting this issue? Does the UPAD have anything to do with this discussion? Political inoperability? At this point they’re all speculations and it would be nice if Alvarado talked to the truth.
But the truth is that during the years the PAC has been in government, cannabis activists, growers and users have been highly repressed with all sorts of police attitudes that show imminent persecution. It cannot be forgotten that it was during the PAC government (November 2020) that the prosecution imprisoned Mario Cerdas again for supplying cannabis to people close to cancer. NOT for SELLING cannabis as the director of the OIJ said, Espinoza in a press network. MCN has the file confirming this statement.
This was given while agriculture minister Alvarado announced with hype and cymbals the incursion into marijuana planting, alluding to the fact that it was hemp.
Yes, while the government was announcing its marijuana farms, a non-drug dealer cannabis activist lawyer was imprisoned with evidence allegedly obtained fraudulently.
During COVID-19 police restrictions and controls, people are being detained and prosecuted simply because they are cannabis users. Some police officers have been sending consumers to flagrance courts abusing procedures and classifying consumption as drug trafficking. Yes, during the PAC government.
It seems that the president does not want to go down in history as the person who legalized cannabis, now he will go down in history as the president who made Pilate’s and washed his hands, even knowing everything that is going on.
Now a new group of MEMBERS of the PAC bench has just presented a project that aims to legalize cannabis to “benefit small and medium-sized producers” by collecting 30% tax on the products they make. Even in California, American cannabis mecca, they do not even dare make this claim.
These deputies have no gram of decency left.
in Costa Rica. 
