Mexico - Cannabis legalization
The new law aims to strengthen civil liberties and curb drug cartels.
Mexico is home to the most powerful drug cartels in the world, which have been terrorizing the country for years. But the country is ready to try something different in tackling gangs by legalizing at least one of their products: Cannabis.
Mexico is set to become the largest legal cannabis market in the world as its Congress concludes legislation in the coming weeks to legalize weed throughout the supply chain, from agriculture to distribution and consumption.
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In late November, the Mexican Senate passed a law legalizing recreational cannabis. Lower house lawmakers say they will pass a bill by February, even if they want to increase the amount of weed consumers can own in public beyond the Senate bill's limit of 28 grams, or about one ounce. t1>
Currently in Mexico you can have up to five grams of cannabis without being arrested. The use of Cannabis for medicinal purposes has been legal since 2017.
"We are committed to regulating cannabis. It is a right of Mexicans," Ignacio Mier, the majority leader in the Mexican lower house and member of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's Morena party, said in an interview.
Mexico's supreme court ruled in 2018 that the cannabis ban was unconstitutional.
The court took action after several legalization lawyers filed court cases. One group even took over a small park across from the Mexican Senate and planted around 800 cannabis plants to lobby lawmakers. Activists regularly harvest the plants and smoke the sprouts.
Mr. Mier said lawmakers and senators will work together in January to agree on a joint bill to be put to a vote in both houses.
The legal changes will turn Mexico into the third country in the world to legalize cannabis nationwide for recreational use after Uruguay and Canada, and the largest with a potential consumption market of 88 million adults.
Since Canada and Mexico will now have legal cannabis, it will also likely lead to pressure on the US to follow suit, he said.
Fifteen US states have legalized recreational cannabis, including California and Illinois. Oregon recently became the first state to decriminalize small amounts of hard drugs, even heroin and cocaine.
Authorities expect the legalization of Mexico for recreational use will increase competition, lower prices and reduce black market for drug gangs.
According to government estimates, around 200 organized crime groups operate in Mexico, where around 270,000 people have been killed since 2006, mostly due to cartel-related violence .
Many analysts, however, argue that legalization will only have a marginal impact on drug gangs.
Today, cannabis makes up only a small percentage of the profits of the gangs, whose main sources of income are cocaine, synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and gasoline theft.
Cartels have also diversified into widespread extortion of small businesses across Mexico
Cannabis seizures on the US-Mexico border have plummeted about 83% since the year 2015, an indication that cannabis is a declining business for Mexican cartels in part due to the growing legal market north of the border.
"Anyone who thinks this law will be a magic bullet that will reduce the crime and murders is too optimistic, "said Alejandro Hope, security analyst and former intelligence officer.
Mr. Hope and others say Mexico's only realistic chance of facing the cartels is through capable law enforcement institutions, which the country has failed to build.
The Mexican army has mostly been deployed since 2006 to face the increasingly powerful cartels. During that time, the murder rate increased as rival gangs fought each other and the security forces.
Mexico's move to legalize weed is part of a wider movement in countries to try new approaches to tackling the abuse of harmful drugs by consumers and going after the networks that supply them.
In recent decades, these policies have focused almost exclusively on a legal approach, imprisoning drug users and seeking to disrupt global supply chains of illicit drugs.
Portugal, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Argentina, Costa Rica and Mexico have implemented some form of decriminalization in regards to the possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use.
This has led to a decrease in transmission of HIV and other infectious diseases and reduced overdose deaths, Ms. Perez said. in the Drug Policy Alliance.
Activists say the current bill is not enough to help create a legal industry that can effectively compete with cartels.
According to the Senate bill, consumers could own up to 28 grams of cannabis in public and grow up to eight plants per family. Possession of more than 28 grams would be subject to fines and from 200 grams onwards would be an offense punishable by imprisonment.
Companies and individuals would be able to produce, distribute, sell, export and import Cannabis under strict guidelines and authorizations established by a newly created regulator, a process that should be time-consuming and expensive.
"The Senate bill provides for an overly regulated market that will inevitably increase costs for legal players, making it difficult for them to compete with the illegal market, ”said Juan Francisco Torres Landa, a Hogan Lovells attorney who has fought for years to legalize weed in Mexico. "This excessive regulation will also make the whole process vulnerable to government corruption."
This is why the lawmakers in the Lower House want to increase the amount of cannabis that consumers can own to 200 grams and return. Easier and faster to get permits to produce and sell cannabis, Mr. Mier said.
They are also against the creation of a new regulator and instead want the health ministry to grant permits.
Meanwhile, the two dozen cannabis activists occupying the park in front of the Mexican Senate say they will not leave. Their makeshift camp includes several sleeping tents, a kitchen and a bathroom connected to the city sewer. A small cannabis museum made of thick boards is under construction.
Activists are negotiating with local authorities to transform the park into a permanent cannabis cultural center, said Pepe Rivera, one of the activists
"We do not accept limits on our right to collect and consume freely, "Mr. Rivera said recently as he walked through the cannabis bushes. "If you don't need a license to drink as much alcohol as you want, why should we accept a limit on our right to smoke cannabis?"
(The small garden of Cannabis plants that grow near the Senate building in Mexico City)
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