Puerto Rico: Senate Cannabis Review Puts Patient Count at 110,548

As of 23 July 2026, Puerto Rico’s Senate has a hard number for its medical cannabis program: 110,548 active patients as of 17 June. That is 14,044 fewer than the peak of 124,592 recorded on 27 July 2022, a drop of 11.3 percent, and it is the figure the Department of Health filed with the Senate Health Commission under Senate Resolution 319.

Senate Resolution 319 directs the Health Commission to evaluate whether the Junta Reglamentadora de Cannabis Medicinal is meeting the duties the law assigns it, and to examine the program’s transparency, effectiveness, and results for patients. Marjorie Tolentino Rivera, Executive Director of the Medicinal Cannabis Office, described 110,000 as the level the program has settled at, per reporting by José E. Maldonado Marrero in Revista Crónicas on 23 July.

The compliance filing is where the numbers get sharper. The Junta notified $345,000 in administrative fines during fiscal year 2025-2026 across 82 occupational-license cases, and had collected $19,500 of that as of 13 July 2026. Between 8 September 2025 and 10 July 2026 it scheduled 453 inspection visits to licensed dispensaries, cultivation sites, manufacturers, transporters, and laboratories, and completed 380. Forty-seven percent produced findings, and 45 percent of documented violations have since been corrected. Tolentino Rivera said owners are expected to follow the regulations whether or not a visit is scheduled.

The prescriber layer is thinner than the patient count suggests. Sixty-three physicians are authorized to recommend cannabis and 55 of them have active recommendations on file. Anxiety disorders are the most reported qualifying condition at 61.29 percent of patients, followed by insomnia at 55.96 percent and chronic pain at 33.65 percent.

Senator Carmelo Ríos Santiago, who authored Resolution 319, used the review to close off the other question travelers ask about Puerto Rico. Speaking to Revista Crónicas on 22 July, he said there will be no room for recreational cannabis while his New Progressive Party colleagues hold the Senate. He made a narrower version of the same point on 14 July, during the first round of site visits, describing cannabis as a medical matter. Senator Juan Oscar Morales Rodríguez chairs the commission running those inspections.

What This Means

For visitors, the legal route into Puerto Rico’s dispensaries is unchanged, and it will stay that way through this Senate term. If you hold a valid medical cannabis card from a US state or territory, you can obtain a 30-day temporary card under Regulation 9038 and buy from any licensed dispensary. There is no adult-use lane, and the senator who wrote the measure auditing the program has now said twice in eight days that one is not coming.

The inspection figures are the more useful thing for a traveler to know. A 47 percent findings rate across 380 visits means the regulator is checking calibration, transport logs, and record-keeping at the businesses tourists walk into. It also means the market CannaCarib counted at 325 licensed dispensaries is being thinned by compliance as much as by demand. Call ahead. A license on the registry is not the same as an open door.

What to watch: the Health Commission has asked for documentation on individual fines, which the Department of Health said it would supply once it finishes verifying the administrative records. Those case-level details, and whatever the commission reports when the Resolution 319 review closes, are the next disclosure worth waiting for. Separately, the federal rescheduling hearing record closed on 15 July, and a Schedule III outcome would change banking and research conditions for the same licensees the Senate is now inspecting.