To change a law and the consciences of its main defenders, the sum of many is necessary, so through the visibility of the benefits that a cannabis treatment causes in Parkinson's patients, we seek to demolish the myths and raise the voices of many, patients, authorities and citizens, to make deeper changes.

The PR strategy was very important because, unlike other players in the Pharma industry, El Herbólogo Foundation doesn't have budgets and needed, through the impact of a creative idea, to add followers of its efforts, defenders of its applications and amplifiers of the benefits of medicinal cannabis therapy.

In Chile it is legal to consume marijuana, the how (cultivation and acquisition) is treated as a crime, by Law 20,000 that applies to drug traffickers and has also been applied to patients who use cannabis for medicinal purposes.

El Herbólogo Foundation and the agency, in charge of researching and developing medicinal cannabis treatments, discovered that patients with Parkinson's in Phase IV could control their involuntary movements, temporarily, if an extraction of Compound of 50% THC and 50% CBD is applied daily.

However, that treatment cannot reach more than 40,000 Parkinson's patients in Chile, as well as other diseases, because it is considered a crime to cultivate the cannabis plant or acquire its substrates.

With this background, it was time to take action to demystify the use of medical cannabis, because we knew that by eliminating it’s myths we could make deeper changes.

How did we do it?

From the discovery of the El Herbólogo Foundation and the agency, we set ourselves the goal of viralizing the almost instantaneous benefits in Parkinson's patients in Phase IV who had not been subjected to it.

The viralization of the problem was as simple as a letter and as relevant as the power to write and the right to be heard. Demolishing even the myth that in 2022 the letters are not important.

In the clinical trial the patients write two letters by hand, describing their situation and inviting to see the problem of access to cannabis medicines. The first was written without the treatment and the second after a specialist in cannabis medicine gave them the treatment.

The process was recorded in a documentary where we make visible the opinions of different authorities in relation to medicinal cannabis treatments. It was later viralized through a PR strategy.

We decided that to reach the right audience we needed to enlist many more voices to become amplifiers of these innocent and brave requests.

The tool used was two cards... But... A card in the 21st century?

If we want to demystify a situation, our strategy also included how to do it.

Those chosen to receive the letters in their mailbox were the decision makers and creators of opinion matrixes in the political, educational, religious and medical dimensions. More than 100 letters were sent. But not only they were important, but citizens in general and that is why to raise awareness and add them to this crusade for the rights of Parkinson's patients, we sent more than 400 letters.

Through these two letters with the same content but written at different times, it organically went viral in digital media, allowing this fight to be shared among many more.

After the clinical trial, we sent more than 100 copies of the letters to different influencers from different dimensions such as: Politics, education, religion, medical specialist. And 400 copies to the general public. Each letter contained a QR invitation to a landing page “Letters for a Law” where the documentary was also hosted.

The documentary not only made the clinical trial visible, but also shared the lives of the protagonist patients, their difficulties and their needs. As well as the opinion, sometimes contrary, of different legal, medical and community voices about Law 20,000 and its modification.

And we use the El Herbólogo Foundation's own digital channels to position them as the specialists and main defenders of patients who need medicinal cannabis treatment.

In three days the landing page received more than 10,000 visits.

Within a week, more than 100,000 people viewed the campaign on Instagram and interacted with it organically to drive an 11.7% engagement rate in less than 20 days.

In the same period Instagram followers growth reached 18%, more than 56 reposts from approximately 23 people echoed the letters written by patients, making their voices stronger and all this organically.

Five days after the release of the documentary, the IACHR made official the Chilean State for the application of a law against the trafficking of marijuana in medicinal therapy.

Today, thanks to the popular consultation, 33,400 people signed for cannabis, its medicinal use and regulation to be part of the Constitution, making it the most supported initiative among the country's constituents.

And most importantly, in a few minutes we gave back the power to express themselves to three Pakirson patients, we helped make their pain visible and amplify their defenders, all to restore their dignity.

In Chile it is legal to consume marijuana, its acquisition and cultivation for medicinal uses, is a crime.

It was time to demystify before the authorities and the country in general, the use of medicinal cannabis to improve the quality of life of Parkinson's patients.

Legislative decision makers and opinion generators as well as the general public and Parkinson's patients to whom cannabis medicine temporarily helps to control their movements and restore dignity in their daily lives.