Mexico is getting closer to becoming the world’s largest legal cannabis market, while lawmakers are preparing for a proposal to legalize legal marijuana.
Martha Tagle Martínez, a member of the House Health Committee, said the House of Representatives, the congressional sub-council, similar to the U.S. House of Representatives, would address early next week. in a series of tweets.
The Senate approved the legalization of medical marijuana nearly four months ago, and two months later, the Ministry of Health published rules to regulate the use of medicinal cannabis.
Former president Vicente Fox, who is on the board of the global medical marijuana company Khiron Life Sciences Corp., said he sees the potential for Mexico to make money on much-needed job creation, economic investment and medical advancement.
A regulated market can also help reduce the cartel violence that has become synonymous with the country.
“A lot of great things will happen,” he said. “We take this beautiful plant away from criminals and place it in the hands of retailers and farmers.”
Mexico has been steadily advancing to create a marijuana market since 2015, when a federal judge ruled for medical reasons the importation of cannabidiol, more commonly known as downtown. The verdict stems from a case in which a young girl suffers from a severe form of epilepsy.
The parents of the girl, Grace Elizalde, who was then 8 years old, tried just about everything to treat her Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which caused 400 seizures a day. At their most desperate, the family travels three hours to Laredo, Texas, to purchase Cosyntropin, a synthetic peptide that can be used to treat seizures. The medicine cost more than $ 5,000, says Grace’s father, Raul Elizalde, who is now president of international downtown company HempMeds.
Elizalde eventually reached out to a Mexican lawmaker who publicly supported the approval of cannabis legislation in Mexico after the state of Washington and Colorado legalized recreational marijuana. The legislator, Fernando Belaunzarán, wrote a letter to the Secretary of Health of Mexico on behalf of the Elizalde family requesting permission to import cannabis oil for the treatment of Grace.
Initially, the Ministry of Health rejected the request, but a federal judge stepped in and allowed Elizalde to enter downtown.
“There was not much information in 2015 at that time,” Elizalde said. “It was difficult to find information on cannabis, especially CBD.”
Elizalde said Grace’s doctor was interested in research being done around the world on CBD as a possible treatment for epilepsy and that it was worth trying his daughter, who is now 13. Said Elizalde.
In 2017, Enrique Peña Nieto, the then president, signed a bill that would allow the medical use of marijuana products containing less than 1 percent THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. The bill also calls on the Ministry of Health to draft and enforce regulations for the emerging industry.
It took Mexico another three years to finalize regulations. Over time, the perception of the public gradually shifted as more families spoke in public about the use of cannabis medicine to treat various ailments.
“The domino effect is taking place,” Fox said. ‘The challenge no. 1 is to communicate, inform and educate consumers and patients. And also to educate the medical community. There is still some hesitation in Mexican culture. ‘
In a poll published in the newspaper El Financiero last year, 58 percent of respondents opposed full legalization. But among respondents under the age of 40, more than half said they were in favor of legalizing cannabis.
“Mexico is changing,” Elizalde said. “We never thought we would change the law. Now it is changing faster than we thought possible.”
Although the path to full legalization appears to be, especially compared to the U.S. debate on the so-called war on drugs, Mexico’s path has not necessarily been driven by public or political question. Instead, the Supreme Court of Mexico has issued a series of five rulings in which the ban on cannabis use is unconstitutional.
Under Mexican law, the number of decisions required to set a precedent is five.
“Mexico has gone down the legal road because of a peculiarity in the way their legal system works,” said Andrew Rudman, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center, an impartial research organization.
While the mandate of the court has forced lawmakers to build a framework for regulating cannabis, it has not necessarily created a desire among elected officials to do so quickly.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador campaigned for the promise to change the country’s approach to its drug war, including peace and amnesty negotiations for people involved in or affected by the illegal drug trade. Despite his campaign promises, legalizing cannabis is not necessarily a top priority, Rudman said.
“It was more that the court basically told Congress, ‘You have to do this,'” he said.
While the clock is ticking for Mexico to complete both its medical and recreational cannabis programs, the U.S. could be left in an awkward position if its neighbors in the north and south have legal frameworks. Canada legalized recreational jabas in 2018; marijuana remains a schedule 1 drug in the US
“It creates some interesting trade issues,” Rudman said. “Mexico legalization will boost the push for, if not legalization, decriminalization in the US”
The Chamber of Deputies has until the end of April to fulfill the court’s mandate to legalize cannabis.