By Diego Oré
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Former Mexican President Vicente Fox said on Friday he expected Congress to pass a new law legalizing cannabis next week, a move that would create one of the world’s largest weed markets.
The bill, backed by the administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, would be a major shift in a country struggling for years by a violent drug cartel.
Fox, a director of the Colombian-Canadian Khiron Life Sciences, which focuses on cannabis for medical use, has been a longtime advocate for the decriminalization of marijuana in Mexico.
“We are receiving direct information from lawmakers,” he told Reuters. “This is information that is reliable and solid, and next week it needs to be approved.”
A source in the lower house told Reuters the bill would be discussed on Monday. It was to be approved in December but was delayed.
The bill, which the Senate easily passed in a vote in November, would create a huge new legal market for marijuana that companies like Khiron Life Sciences would like to use eagerly.
Canada’s canopy growth and The Green Organic Dutchman, as well as medical marijuana from California, are among others in Mexico.
Grand View Research said in a recent study that the global legal market for the plant could be worth $ 73.6 billion by 2027.
Lopez Obrador argued that the decriminalization of cannabis and other narcotics could help combat Mexico’s powerful drug cartels.
Fox said it wants to create a marijuana cabinet and a laboratory where the plant will be studied at its Fox center in Mexico.
“I am convinced that legalizing marijuana is the first step in legalizing all banned products,” he said.
(Written by Diego Ore; Edited by Sonya Hepinstall)