A young epileptic producing cannabis oil for medical use could be sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Francisco Giovanoli (31) was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of six and at age ten, he began to have seizures. At the age of 19, after taking medication for life with drugs that produce many side effects, he knew marijuana for medical purposes, he never felt better and abandoned conventional treatment to turn to self-cultivation from the plant to produce its own cannabis oil.

A court could sentence him for therapeutic use of marijuana to up to 15 years in prison. under Article 5 of Act 23 737 on seeding, plant cultivation and seed storage.

But the lawsuit against Francisco began five years ago when the federal police raided his home in Puerto Madryn, where he grew his plants. to stock up on oil that he uses to relieve his illness and he was detained for a week.

"In 2014, for a so-called anonymous report, a search was conducted on the order of a prosecutor and a judge and they found just over 40 plants, most of them without flowering – what Called plants – which he needed for the whole year "He explained Mariano Fusero, criminal lawyer, president of the NGO Reset, a Infobae. "People who use it for therapeutic purposes need a quantity considerable plants, "he added.

"They started a criminal trial, they sued, and five years have pbaded since Francisco's future was unclear, that it's about freedom or detention. the sentence that could correspond to him is 4 to 15 years, which, to take into account the punitive disproportion, is the maximum penalty for a crime of rape", stressed Fusero.

In 2012, Francisco got tired of living with the side effects of prescribed medications he depended on, such as nausea, numbness, constant risk of fatal hepatic insufficiency, metabolic problems, loss of concentration and doped feelings of life. That is why he started looking for alternative therapies and the one who most convinced him is the use of medicinal cannabis.

"It was a change of autonomy, I went back to work"said Francisco in an interview with the Radio 100.1 from Comodoro Rivadavia. "I could think faster, I had sustained readings, I could create links and relate concepts of social and political facts, all with the medication did not happen." "I know I'm fine, I'm guided by the principle of self-determination, I've stopped having a crisis until the day they attacked me"he counted.

Reset, the organization for human rights and drug policy chaired by Mariano Fusero, not only accompanies, informs and advises the public defense of Giovanoli (through the intermediary of lawyers Marianela Holm and Florencia Savariano), but also is presented amicus curiae ("Friends of the Court"), for "provide information to the jury on a number of cases with more plants in which people were fired and a critical badysis of what would be current legislation on medicinal uses.

"The rhetoric of the law – explained Fusero about the regulations approved in 2017 – it was intended to prevent self-cultivation so as not to attack the illegal market, and the opposite occurs ". The law and a subsequent decree that modifies it, according to him, "What they do, is to condemn people to go underground, direct demand to the illegal market".

"So we see how clandestine sales are growing in cannabis oil forums, where for example they come to charge a few milliliters up to 6,000 pesos", added the specialist, former member of the Sedronar.

"The law has put in place a research program that only children and young adults with refractory epilepsy can participate in, considering that it is around which there is greater international scientific evidence of its effectiveness. ", did he declare. "After two years, the first is at Garrahan Hospital with 21 cases of children with refractory epilepsy using imported Canadian oil. That is, the program begins to investigate the disease for which it states that there is already enough evidence. It does not make sense"

In this way, Francisco has no legal access to the substance. "While self-cultivation continues to be punished and that they see the quantity as an aggravating factor, although there is not a single indication or evidence of sale, the process continues, "said Fusero.

"10 years after the emblematic decision Arriola of the Supreme Court [por el cual se dejó sin efecto una condena un caso de tenencia para consumo personal de marihuana] The law has not yet been amended, despite the fact that there are 25 projects to decriminalize the figure of the property regime for consumption purposes, "said the lawyer. "Thus, consumers are detained, requisitioned and prosecuted by the courts, in a disproportionate proportion of excessive resources."

"This has already been badyzed by the Supreme Court of Justice of the nation and other minor courts," insisted Fusero. "There were people who had been fired a lot earlier for the same thing. Even in Madryn, in the same jurisdiction, a judge allowed a woman to cultivate 25 plants must receive the same substance for therapeutic purposes ".

At age 17, the oral and federal court of Comodoro Rivadavia, chaired by Enrique Jorge Guanziroli and integrated by Judge Nora Cabrera de Monella and Alejandro Ruggero, will start the lawsuit against Francisco where his supporters will try to prove that the young man needs cannabis oil for this property and does not hurt others with his auto-farming.