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Uruguay has made history. The South American country exported to Australia 10 tons of cannabis for medicinal use, also with a high content of the THC component.

The news was released this morning by the Associated Press.

"This means the end of drug policies as they have existed in the last 50 or 60 years and the beginning of a new era of rational use of cannabis," said Jordan Lewis, principal of the export company Fotmer.

The 10 tons of high-grade medicinal flowers will be marketed in Australia where there’s a legal framework for the use of medical cannabis. Each gram will sell for around 4 to 9 dollars.

According to local sources, the government plans for the country to become the world's first exporter in a high-scale industrial scheme.

“It is the confirmation that our cannabis regulatory framework offers an adequate solution to the problems of the prohibitionist model, in this case enabling the application of science and technology to high-quality medicinal production. The most demanding markets are looking at Uruguay, ” said Diego Olivera, general secretary of the National Drug Board.

According to businessmen, it is planned to follow export routes worldwide. Underlining Europe and Australia. They also indicated that to reach this point they had to generate highly complicated logistics that required them nine months of work.

The company that made this historical event is called Fotmer and directly employs 170. Its products are creams, capsules and medicinal oils.

To do this, they grow, extract and investigate the best methods to achieve it. According to experts, "marijuana flowers used for medical purposes do not differ from those used for recreational use." However, quality controls and care are very different because of the regulations of the medical industry.

These types of products can be used for the treatment of multiple diseases such as refractory epilepsy, arthritis, cancer, multiple sclerosis, crohn's disease, side effects of chemotherapy, stress, anxiety, chronic pain and more.

For this, flowers high in CBD and THC are used. Since 2013, Uruguay enabled all kinds of regulation for both the medicinal and recreational part. The government predicted at the time that this industry would bring great economic benefits to the country.

This post is also available in: Español