MEXICO CITY – Lawmakers in Mexico on Wednesday night approved a bill to legalize marijuana for recreation, a milestone for the country, which is in the midst of a drug war and could become the world’s largest cannabis market, which the United States between two pottery neighbors late.
The 316 to 129 votes in the House of Representatives of Mexico, the Chamber of Deputies, came more than two years after the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that the country’s ban on recreational marijuana was unconstitutional and more than three years after the country legalized medicinal cannabis.
The House approved the bill Wednesday night in general terms before moving on to a lengthy discussion of possible revisions instituted by individual lawmakers. In its final form, however, the measure is widely expected to pass by the Senate before being sent to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has indicated support for legalization.
With the measure, adults can smoke marijuana from Wednesday evening and grow a small number of marijuana plants at home with a permit. It will also provide licenses for producers – from smallholder farmers to commercial producers – to grow and sell the crop.
“Today we are in a historic moment,” said Simey Olvera, a lawmaker with the ruling Morena party. “This leaves behind the false belief that cannabis is part of Mexico’s serious public health problems.”
If enacted, Mexico will join Canada and Uruguay in a small but growing list of countries that have legalized marijuana in the Americas, giving the legalization movement in the region even more momentum. In the United States, Democrats in the Senate have also promised to abolish the federal ban on the drug this year.
For “Mexico, because of its size and global reputation for being damaged by the drug war, it is very important to take this step,” said John Walsh, director of drug policy at the Washington Office on Latin America, an American advocacy group. said. “North America is on the road to legalization.”
In Mexico, however, the bill proved divisive.
Critics say it is unlikely to make a serious dent in Mexico’s rising percentage of cartel-fueled violence, and according to recent polls, it is unwelcome in a country where nearly two-thirds of people oppose the legalization of marijuana.
“This is a political fad,” said Damián Zepeda Vidales, a senator with the opposition National Action Party and one of the most outspoken opponents of the bill. “This is a matter for politicians, for an elite now empowered in Congress and the government that wants to impose a way of life on society.”
Security experts agree that the practical impact of the law on violence is likely to be minimal: with 15 U.S. states now legalizing marijuana, they claim, the crop has become a relatively small part of Mexican drug trafficking, with cartels focusing on more profitable products such as fentanyl and methamphetamines.
“We must not overestimate the power of this bill,” said Falko Ernst, Mexico’s senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, a global research organization. The bill will not substantially change the dynamics and drivers of deadly conflict in Mexico.
Proponents of the marijuana legalization claim that the bill is too restrictive, even if it is a symbolic breakthrough in pushing to end a drug war that has cost an estimated 150,000 lives, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Legalization “is an important step towards building peace in a country like ours, where we have been plunged into an absurd war for at least a decade or more,” said Lucía Riojas Martínez, a Mexican congressman who made headlines in 2019 when she co-chaired Home Affairs Minister Olga Sánchez Cordero after delivering a speech in Congress.
“But this bill is not about achieving that,” she added.
It is also unclear how much the law will benefit Mexico’s poor farmers, who have been growing marijuana for decades and often amid conflict between warring drug trafficking groups.
The bill stipulates that smallholder farmers and indigenous peoples should be given preference in licensing, but it only stipulates that more than one license can be granted to these vulnerable groups.
And without additional state policies to tackle organized crime, especially in areas where marijuana is grown, Mr. Ernst said, such well-intentioned requirements may not have a significant impact on farmers in the cartel-controlled regions.
“For most areas where you have these institutions with great conflict,” Mr. Ernst said, there are not enough state resources to really tackle organized crime groups.
But many entrepreneurs at least see green.
With more than 120 million people, Mexico would represent the largest dagga market in the world by population. The crop could become a major enterprise in Mexico, a potential financial elevator for an economy plagued by the coronavirus crisis.
“This is an excellent economic, natural, ethical and moral solution for a country in need,” said Juan Sánchez Mejorada, CEO of Ceres Soluciones, a medical cannabis company.
“If you do it right, it could give Mexico an economic surplus,” he said.
This kind of fervor makes pro-marijuana activists nervous.
“This is a law for the rich and marijuana must apply to everyone,” said Ivania Medina Rodríguez, 18, a local activist. “They go before rights.”
Dressed like a giant marijuana leaf, Ms. Medina attended a rally last year that began on a small marijuana plantation outside the Senate offices in Mexico City, where residents now regularly come to smoke pot while police wrap cloths around their eyes.
Some activists fear that the law will benefit large companies too much who can get the bill an ‘integral license’, which could give them access to the entire marijuana supply chain, from seed to sale, while shutting down small-scale producers and sellers outside the country word. the lucrative market.
The Mexican bill allows individual users to take up to 28 grams of marijuana and grow six marijuana plants at home. Cannabis can also be purchased by adults over the age of 18 at authorized establishments and grown on a larger scale by licensed groups. Medical marijuana, which Mexico legalized in 2017, would be regulated separately by the Ministry of Health, which in January published rules on the cultivation and research on medicinal cannabis.
Local lawyers say the restrictions on possession will limit the impact of the bill, especially for low-income consumers, who could potentially become the prey of police extortion, which is common in Mexico.
“We live in a country where corruption and extortion are the norm,” said Zara Snapp, co-founder of the RIA Institute, a drug research and advocacy group in Mexico.
For many supporters in Mexico, the adoption of the bill is a significant step in the long journey to full legalization.
“It’s like when you’re running a marathon and you’ve not started yet – the first meter run helps start the discussion,” he said. Sánchez, the marijuana businessman, said. “It means firing the weapon, even if we have 42 kilometers left.”