by FlowerPower999
We Are Fighting for More Than a Plant
On July 27, people from various sectors will once again take to the streets to demand accountability from a government that continues to preside over deepening national crises. Food prices, fuel costs, and other basic necessities keep rising. Corruption remains entrenched. Our environment continues to be plundered. Human rights defenders are under attack. Foreign interests continue to encroach upon our national sovereignty.
Amid all these issues is a struggle that is too often pushed aside despite years of organizing: the fight for a humane, scientific, and just understanding of the cannabis plant.
Every year, alongside the People’s March, cannabis advocates join the mobilization to demand safe access, an end to the criminalization of patients, and the adoption of harm reduction as a more humane response to health concerns. This is not simply a call for legalization. It is a call for dignity, the right to healthcare, and a society that chooses care over punishment.
The Mental Health Crisis Is Worsening While Access to Care Remains Limited
According to both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Philippine Department of Health (DOH), the number of Filipinos living with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other mental health conditions continues to rise at an alarming rate. An estimated 3.6 million Filipinos are living with mental health disorders, a situation made even worse by economic insecurity, unemployment, and the country’s severe shortage of psychiatrists—roughly one psychiatrist for every 100,000 people.
Around the world, however, cannabis is increasingly being recognized as part of a broader public health conversation. Cannabinoids such as CBD (cannabidiol) and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) continue to be supported by clinical research for managing anxiety, PTSD, chronic pain, epilepsy, and chemotherapy-induced nausea. Cannabis is not being promoted as a “miracle cure,” but as one evidence-based therapeutic option that should be available under proper medical supervision.
Instead of treating every user as a criminal, many countries have shifted toward education, harm reduction, and responsible regulation. They recognize that healthcare begins with compassion, not with handcuffs.
The Plant Is Not the Criminal. Neither Is the Patient.
In the Philippines, the outdated and punitive Republic Act No. 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, still classifies cannabis as a Schedule I controlled substance. Under this archaic legal framework, patients, caregivers, and ordinary Filipinos continue to face fear, stigma, and imprisonment simply for seeking alternative treatment for themselves or their loved ones.
Meanwhile, more countries continue to decriminalize cannabis or establish tightly regulated but compassionate medical cannabis programs. Since the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs voted in 2020 to remove cannabis from the strictest Schedule IV classification, countries across Europe, Canada, Australia, and the United States have steadily reframed cannabis as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice issue.
In the Philippines, the passage of House Bill No. 10439—the Access to Medical Cannabis Act—in July 2024, alongside Senate Bill No. 2573 or the Cannabis Medical Access Act, reflects a growing recognition within Congress and Senate that Filipinos deserve lawful access to medical cannabis. The proposed legislation would establish a Medical Cannabis Office under the Department of Health to oversee regulation, research, physician accreditation, and licensed dispensaries.
Yet legislation alone is never enough. Laws move because people push them forward. Public pressure remains necessary to ensure that any future medical cannabis law truly serves patients instead of being weakened by conservative dogma or bureaucratic interests.
A National Opportunity We Cannot Afford to Waste
As a tropical agricultural country, the Philippines has the natural potential to become an important center for medical cannabis research and production in Southeast Asia.
House Bill No. 10439 recognizes this possibility by allowing the state to issue licenses for cannabis importation, cultivation, manufacturing, and research, while also encouraging agricultural and medical colleges to integrate cannabis education into their curricula through CHED.
Thailand’s experience—the first country in Asia to legalize cannabis for medical and industrial purposes—demonstrates what responsible regulation can achieve. Cannabis research has generated billions of baht for the local economy while supporting universities, local farmers, researchers, and thousands of patients.
But this is about more than economic growth. It is about scientific innovation, medicinal sovereignty, and creating new opportunities for Filipino farmers who have long been neglected. With transparent regulation and public accountability, cannabis cultivation could become part of a broader rural development strategy instead of another industry monopolized by multinational pharmaceutical corporations.
There Can Be No Justice While People Are Still Imprisoned Over a Plant
As investigations into the Duterte administration’s bloody “war on drugs” move forward at the International Criminal Court (ICC), calls for justice continue to grow louder.
Thousands of families, most of them from poor communities, are still waiting for accountability after a campaign that overwhelmingly targeted the poor while leaving powerful drug syndicates largely untouched.
The cannabis movement stands with all victims of the violent anti-drug campaign. It also calls for the review of cases and eventual release of individuals who remain imprisoned solely for cannabis-related offenses.
A justice system that chooses punishment over care—and fear over understanding—cannot honestly call itself just.
The Plant Cannot Be Free Unless Society Is Free
The struggle for cannabis cannot be separated from the broader struggle for genuine national democracy.
We cannot talk about the right to health while hunger worsens under soaring food prices. We cannot demand medical access while public healthcare continues to suffer from budget cuts and corruption. We cannot speak of scientific research while peasant advocates, agricultural researchers, and farmers defending their land continue to face harassment, red-tagging, and political killings.
How can cannabis—or any crop for that matter—ever flourish when our mountains are devastated by destructive mining, while productive agricultural lands are converted into luxury subdivisions, AI data centers, and foreign military facilities?
Cannabis does not grow in a vacuum. It grows from the soil. And that same soil continues to be seized and exploited despite the resistance of the very people who protect it.
That is why freeing the plant alone will never be enough if the society meant to nurture people, nature, and the future remains imprisoned by inequality and exploitation.
March for Real Liberation!
This year’s People’s March during SONA 2026 is an opportunity to affirm that the struggles for healthcare, human rights, environmental protection, justice, and national sovereignty are deeply connected.
Every step we take reminds those in power that genuine change neither begins with judgement nor violence. It begins with recognizing human rights and dignity.
So this July 27, join the march! The meeting spot will be at the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines, U.P. Diliman, Quezon City at 9:00 AM. Raise the call to #FreeThePlant! Let us demand a society that chooses care over punishment, science over stigma, and solidarity over fear. Because in the end, the liberation of the plant is only one part of a much larger aspiration—the liberation of the Filipino people themselves!
We would like to thank the following organizations from the community itself:
MedCann Philippines – MedCann Mindanao – Philippine Cannabis Legal Resource Center – CannaLegal PH – Haraya Policy Center – The Turf PH – MAMA DUBS PH – Help Educate Misinformed People – Optmst – Gulay Lang Manong – MedCann Cavite – MedCann Camarines Sur – MedCann Albay – MedCann RIZAL – MedCann Pampanga – MedCann Aurora – MedCann Batangas – Medcann Nueva Ecija – Canna Riders PH – Masaya Media
#Kapayapaan #Pagbabago #GamotAngMarijuana #Pagmamahal #Community #PatientOverPolitics #SONA2026 #FreeThePlant #MedicalCannabisNow #HarmReductionPH #HealthIsAHumanRight #PeopleMarchSONA2026
