MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexico’s lower house passed a marijuana legalization bill on Wednesday, putting the country on track to become one of the largest legal marijuana markets in the world.
The deputies passed the legislation in general terms, but continued to debate details until late at night. The approved legislation, which must return to the Senate, would allow recreational use of marijuana, but would establish a system of necessary licenses for the entire chain of production, distribution, processing and marketing.
It would also require individuals, not just user associations, to have a license to grow plants for personal use. Each individual could have six plants, with a maximum of eight per family.
Adults can use marijuana without affecting other people or children, but if they are caught over 28 grams, they will be fined. They can face a prison sentence if they are over 12 pounds.
Opposition parties have not supported the legislation, which they say will lead to increased drug use.
In 2015, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of recreational use of marijuana. In 2019, the court ordered the government to create legislation, arguing that banning its use was unconstitutional.
The court gave lawmakers until April 30 to pass the law.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador expressed support and his party, Morena, has a majority in the congress that is passing the legislation. Still, with campaigns underway for 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 abandoned the establishment of a new government agency specifically for the regulation of marijuana. Instead, the management of the new market will go to the existing National Anti-Addiction Commission, which experts say has no capacity to regulate something so complex.
“They are going to make the law inoperable,” said Lisa Sánchez, director of Mexico United Against Crime, one of the nongovernmental organizations that has been pushing marijuana legalization for years.
Lawmakers in favor of the bill say it will move the marijuana market from the hands of Mexico’s powerful drug cartels to the government.
But experts fear that transnational corporations will be the main beneficiaries, not the consumers or farmers who form the bottom rung of the drug chain.
The use of medical marijuana has been legal in Mexico since 2017 and is permitted in several other Latin American countries. But only Uruguay allows recreational use in the region.
Even if the Senate passed the lower house bill without further changes, it would take time for it to take effect. An entire regulatory framework would have to be developed. This was the case with medical marijuana, which only started to work in January with the establishment of the necessary regulations.