Costa Rica’s Hemp Licenses Will Be Free

Hemp licenses in Costa Rica will carry no cost under regulations signed into law earlier this month, the Costa Rican News reports. The regulations are the first hemp-related rules approved by President Rodrigo Chaves Robles and by the heads of the Agriculture and Livestock portfolios, Laura Bonilla, and Health, Yoselyn Chacón. 

In a press release outlined by the News, the regulations are applicable to individuals or legal entities that are interested in importing, planting, cultivating, harvesting, post-harvesting, storing, transporting, processing, manufacturing, marketing, importing and exporting hemp derivatives as health, food, and industrial products.

The licenses will be granted for six years and can be renewed for another six years. Licensees will be allowed to acquire seeds, seedlings, cuttings, or any other hemp propagation material, the report says, along with the planting, development, harvest, import, transport, and marketing of hemp plants as raw material for processing.

The regulation will enter into force once it is published in the official newspaper, La Gaceta.

Costa Rican lawmakers passed the hemp law reforms in April after more than three years of legislative effort, according to an Attaché Report sent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service, which also suggested that officials had hoped to get the first batch of regulations approved by May 8.

Last month, President Rodrigo Chaves said he planned to push for adult-use reforms and would soon unveil the nation’s medical cannabis rules, Tico Times reports. Chaves has not provided further details on what those reforms would look like.