The incoming government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico has drafted a bill which is likely to see medical and recreational cannabis legalized once Congress passes it.
The bill is intended to change the approach that Mexico has been taking to fight crime. The past 12 years have seen escalations in violence and poverty as the country fought to bring down the organized crime networks built around the illicit cultivation and sale of cannabis within and beyond the borders of Mexico, especially to the U.S.
Olga Sanchez, the Interior Minister-nominee, said that it was now time to bring peace to the country and end the war on drugs. She was alluding to the thousands of lives that have been lost due to drug-related crime, such as the wars between rival gangs over drug trafficking routes and cultivation areas.
The proposed bill will allow companies to cultivate and commercialize marijuana. Individuals would also be permitted to grow cannabis for their own use, as long as they didn’t harvest more than the maximum amount (480 grams) permitted each year for such privately grown plants.
Furthermore, individual growers will be required to register with the state so that they can be monitored to ensure that they aren’t growing more than is permitted for personal use. Smoking marijuana in public is also likely to be permitted.
The bill seeks to make it illegal for cannabis companies to employ children. Child labor has been the hallmark of the illegal cannabis industry in the past, so the law wants to make it clear that children should have no part in the legal cannabis industry.
Three key factors may have prompted Mexico to consider a change of policy with regards to marijuana.
First, individual states in the U.S. have legalized not just medical marijuana but recreational use as well. The U.S. has for long supported efforts to stamp out drug trafficking gangs in Mexico.
Secondly, the Supreme Court made five rulings in favor of individuals who were protesting against being restricted from consuming recreational cannabis. Those five rulings effectively made it a must for all other courts to permit anyone who wanted to consume recreational marijuana.
Third, the violence and deaths associated with the war on drugs in Mexico have reached alarming levels of late. For example, not less than 31,000 murders were recorded in the country in 2017. Violent crime had never reached such a level before.
The incoming government doesn’t think legalizing marijuana will magically end all that violence. It plans to offer amnesty and negotiate with many of the armed groups that have been having running battles with the armed forces.
Mexico will join Uruguay and Canada in case cannabis legalization takes place. The U.S. will therefore become isolated among its neighbors if it still insists that marijuana shouldn’t be legalized federally. Youngevity International, Inc. (NASDAQ: YGYI), American Premium Water Corp. (OTC: HIPH) and other companies with interests in the marijuana industry must be hoping that the U.S. federal government takes the hint and conducts marijuana reforms in the way that many of its own states have done.
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