Mexico Approves Bill To Legalize Recreational Marijuana

On Wednesday night, Mexican lawmakers approved a piece of legislation to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in a major move for the country and would potentially put Mexico at the top of the global marijuana business.

Reuters reports, “The bill would allow five types of licenses for the cultivation, transformation, sale, research and export or import of marijuana. Only people 18 years and older, and with a permit, would be able to grow, carry or consume marijuana and its derivatives.”

The Chamber of Deputies, Mexico’s lower chamber, voted 316-129 to generally approve the bill, according to New York Times reporting. Now, the longer process continues as lawmakers are able to discuss potential changes to the bill. Once it is sent to the Senate, however, it is assumed to be passed and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has acknowledged his support of the move.

President López Obrador is part of the Morena party that has control of both Congressional chambers. López Obrador has said that the decriminalization of cannabis and other drugs might aid in the fight against Mexican drug cartels that wreak havoc on the country.

“Today we are in a historic moment,” said Simey Olvera, a lawmaker of the governing Morena party. “With this, the false belief that cannabis is part of Mexico’s serious public health problems is left behind.”

Some oppose the measure due to the fact that it could provide easy access of marijuana to children, as reported by BBC. Many people in the country appear to not be in favor of the change and recent polling from last November shows that 58% of Mexicans do not want marijuana legalized.

Damián Zepeda Vidales, a senator of the opposition National Action Party is reportedly one of the bill’s most outspoken critics. “It’s a political fad,” he said, “It’s a matter for politicians, for an elite that’s now empowered in Congress and in government that wants to impose a way of life on society.”

Since 15 states in America have already legalized marijuana, some security experts believe that there will not be a huge positive effect on minimizing the power of the drug cartels and violence since most traffickers have switched to more lucrative drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamines.

Those in support of the measure believe that it is a crucial move in the direction of ending the drug war that has devastated the country for years, but some also say that it does not do enough.

Lucía Riojas Martínez is a Mexican congresswoman who is known for giving a joint to the country’s interior minister, Olga Sánchez Cordero, in 2019 after giving a speech in Congress. She said that legalization “is an important step toward building peace in a country like ours, where for at least a decade or more, we’ve been immersed in an absurd war…” However, she added, “…this bill falls short of achieving that.”

If the bill passes, the country of more than 120 million people would become the biggest market for marijuana by population on the planet. Some see it as a potential way for Mexico to create more business after an economically difficult year of the pandemic.

John Walsh, director of drug policy for the Washington Office on Latin America, a U.S. research and advocacy organization, said that the fact that Mexico is taking this step is “enormously significant” due to its “size and worldwide reputation for being damaged by the drug war.” He also stated, “North America is heading toward legalization.”

If Mexico legalizes the recreational use of marijuana, it will join Canada and Uruguay as the third country in the region to do so.