A rancher has been in prison for 19 months in Rondônia after being accused and found guilty of drug trafficking when transporting medical cannabis. The decision can be appealed.
Márcio Roberto Pereira, 39, was arrested by the Federal Highway Police in December 2018 while traveling with his wife, Fernanda Peixoto, from Marília, in São Paulo, to Capixaba, in Acre.
The couple took cannabis in the medicinal form to an elderly person from the Santo Daime community to ease post-prostate removal pain.
The couple was charged with drug trafficking for carrying 150 grams of marijuana packaged in the form of a drug and a quantity of cannabis oil - seven glasses. When weighed, they reached 790 grams. Only 5% were cannabis, which was diluted in ordinary olive oil, the couple reported.
After the indictment, the woman was released, while Pereira was sentenced in October last year to eight years of imprisonment in a closed regime for drug trafficking.
"Prison continues to be necessary to guarantee public order (CPP, art. 312), above all to prevent the sentenced woman from continuing to delinquent," said the sentence of Judge Glodner Luiz Pauletto, of the 1st Court of Toxic Crimes, of the Criminal Forum of Porto Velho.
The couple's connection to medical cannabis began in 2003 when Fernanda lived in the United States. There she legally cultivated the product to treat her son's seizures, who had supraventricular tachycardia. The son, since then, no longer needed the oil in his treatment.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon