Technological University of the Philippines
College of Liberal Arts
Department of language
Purposive Communication
Ryan Bicsur L. Bulawan
November 5, 2019
BSME- 1E
Prof. George Ramisan
House Bill 6517 also known as “Philippine Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act”:
Is it time for the Philippines to Legalized Marijuana As A Medical Treatment?
Recently the House of Representatives pushed the bill called House Bill 6517 or the Act
of Providing Compassionate and Right Access to Medical Cannabis and Expanding Research
into its Medicinal Properties and for Other Purposes. The bill states that any patients is legal
to use cannabis or “marijuana” that suffers from debilitating medical conditions.as any
disease causing wasting syndrome, severe and chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures including
those characteristic of epilepsy, or severe and persistent muscle spasms. However, as the bill
sneaked into House of Representatives, the Senate is against to the proposed bill and says that
they will not pass any measures legalizing medical marijuana. But what if the bill is somehow
pass and become a law? What are cons of medical legalization of marijuana in the
Philippines?
The Philippines should legalized the used of marijuana.
First and foremost, other countries like Argentina, Australia, Canada and some states in
United States in America has been using marijuana for medical purposes. According to one
study conducted by University of California Berkeley and Kent State University in which
they emailed their participant for a survey asking them about their pain, and their opioid and
marijuana usage, the result favored marijuana usage, because out of the 2,810 participants
who were currently using marijuana, 828 had used opioids in the last 6 months to manage
their pain, Of that group, "97 percent of the sample 'strongly agreed/agreed' that they are able
to decrease the amount of opioids they consume when they use marijuana. In addition, 89
percent 'strongly agreed/agreed' that taking opioids produces unwanted side effects such as
compared to marijuana in which implies that the participants preferred using marijuana over
opiods to ease their pain. Next, a study conducted at the University of California’s Davis
Medical Center and published in the Journal of Pain, thirty-eight patients with central or
peripheral neuropathic pain were asked to smoke either high-dose (7 percent THC), low-dose
(3.5 percent), or placebo marijuana. Researchers found that marijuana is effective at relieving
neuropathic pain. Furthermore, in 2017, the National Academies Press (NAP) published a
Technological University of the Philippines
College of Liberal Arts
Department of language
Purposive Communication
Ryan Bicsur L. Bulawan
November 5, 2019
BSME- 1E
Prof. George Ramisan
comprehensive review of the health effects of marijuana, including therapeutic effects.
According to the review, substantial evidence suggests marijuana is effective in treating
chronic pain in adults. The researches above strongly suggest the truth that marijuana can
have an beneficial impact especially to those patients and researches also proves that it can
help to ease different types of pain from chronic pain to neuropathic pain.
Marijuana can be sure to have good beneficial effect to patients whose having hard time
in their pain. But, question arises especially when this bill will become a law, first is how to
control the usage of marijuana and also the sole purposes of this bill, that marijuana can only
be use in medical purposes and not for recreational activities. Reports by NIDA (the National
Institute on Drug Abuse) identified marijuana as the most commonly abuse drug in the world.
In 2008, between 120 and 190 million people used marijuana at least once. This breaks down
to between 2.9% and 3.4% of the entire world’s population. Controlling the risk of abusive
usage of marijuana, here in the country seems so difficult because our country lacks of
enforcement and facilities that will handle the victims of over-usage in marijuana.
Though it is hard to think whether the government should legalized or not the medical
marijuana but the fact is that medical marijuana can have beneficial effect especially in
medical purposes while it can be a concern of the proper use of this plant, one thing is for
sure for medical marijuana, with proper research and implementation this little plant can be a
promising advance in medicinal field.
Technological University of the Philippines
College of Liberal Arts
Department of language
Purposive Communication
Ryan Bicsur L. Bulawan
November 5, 2019
BSME- 1E
Prof. George Ramisan