The Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Act was signed into law in 2019. The implementing rules, including the Medical Cannabis Pilot Program, were activated in 2022 under the Department of Health and PDEA. This law creates a limited pathway for specific patient categories to access cannabis-derived CBD preparations.
Who is Eligible (Filipino Patients Only)
The pilot program covers the following qualifying conditions as defined by Department of Health Order 2022: intractable epilepsy (particularly Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome), multiple sclerosis with spasticity, nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy for terminal cancer, and other conditions the DOH may add based on clinical evidence. Patients must be registered with PDEA, hold a physician’s prescription from a DOH-licensed medical cannabis prescriber, and obtain their medications from a DOH-accredited source.
The practical scale of the program as of 2024 remains limited: the number of registered prescribing physicians is small, the number of licensed dispensing pharmacies is limited to a small number of accredited facilities in Metro Manila, and the available preparations are restricted to specific CBD-dominant formulations rather than a full cannabis product range. The program represents genuine progress in Philippine cannabis policy but is not a functional medical cannabis market in the same sense as the programs in Thailand or Malaysia.
Implications for Cannabis Tourism
The Medical Cannabis Pilot Program has no direct implications for cannabis tourism in Manila. It does not create any legal pathway for recreational use, does not establish dispensaries accessible to visitors, and does not change the criminal status of cannabis possession for individuals not registered in the pilot program. The program’s significance is as a policy signal — the first formal acknowledgment that cannabis has medical value in Philippine law — rather than as a practical change in the tourist experience.