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MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexico’s lower house on Wednesday approved a bill to legalize marijuana, putting the country on track to become one of the largest legal marijuana markets in the world.
MPs approved the legislation in general terms, but continued to debate the details late into the night. The approved legislation, which is due to go to the Senate, would allow the recreational use of marijuana, but establish a system of licenses required for the entire chain of production, distribution, processing and sale.
It would also require individuals, and not just user associations, to have a license to grow plants for personal use. Each individual would be allowed to have six plants with a maximum of eight per household.
Adults could use marijuana without affecting others or children, but if caught with more than an ounce (28 grams), they would be fined. They could face jail time if they were over 12 pounds (5.6 kilograms).
Opposition parties did not support the bill, which they believe will lead to increased drug use.
In 2015, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled in favor of the recreational use of marijuana. In 2019, the court ordered the government to create a law, arguing that the ban on its use was unconstitutional.
The court gave lawmakers until April 30 to pass legislation.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has expressed his support and his party, Morena, has a majority in the congress proposing the legislation. Yet with the ongoing campaigns for the national legislative elections in June, the final form of the legislation is still evolving.
Critics fear that some changes made by the lower house threaten the original intention.
For example, in the latest version, lawmakers suppressed the creation of a new government agency specifically for the regulation of marijuana. Instead, management of the new market will go to the existing National Commission against Addictions, which experts say lacks the capacity to regulate something so complex.
“They are going to make the law inoperative,” said Lisa Sánchez, director of Mexico United Against Crime, one of the non-governmental organizations that has been campaigning for the legalization of marijuana for years.
Lawmakers supporting the bill say it will shift the marijuana market from the hands of powerful Mexican drug cartels to the government.
But experts fear that transnational corporations may be the primary beneficiaries rather than the consumers or farmers who have formed the bottom rung of the drug chain.
Medicinal marijuana use has been legal in Mexico since 2017 and is permitted in a number of other Latin American countries. But only Uruguay allows recreational use in the region.
Even if the Senate were to approve the lower house bill without further changes, it would take time for it to come into force. A comprehensive regulatory framework should be developed. This was the case with medicinal marijuana, which only started working in January with the necessary regulations in place.
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