Governor Gerardo Morales has suggested that tobacco farmers in Argentina’s Jujuy Province begin growing cannabis to offset declining tobacco sales, reports The Buenos Aires Times.
“Cannabis is one of the most important projects that we have, and it’s going to generate more profits than lithium and solar energy,” said Morales, whose provincial government has worked to foster marijuana production in the region’s dry, sunny terrain for export.
“I hope that with this [growing cannabis market] we will begin a change in diversification and that 10 years from now we will stop planting tobacco and plant cannabis,” he said.
Tobacco producers, however, were not undividedly enthusiastic. Pedro Pascuttini, president of the Jujuy Tobacco Chamber, said his group would fight to continue producing tobacco.
He added, however, that the group was not completely closed to the idea. “We hope that it will be treated in a way in which they explain to us what it is about, and we are listened to,” he said.
Ten years from now, we will stop planting tobacco and plant cannabis.
Last month, Argentinean lawmakers sent a bill to legalize the production of medicinal cannabis to Congress after a decree authorized personal cultivation for the same purposes last year.
“The global industry for medical cannabis will treble its turnover in the next five years,” Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez predicted in March.