Mexico: Supreme Court extends deadline for legalizing cannabis

Mexico's Supreme Court has once again agreed to extend the deadline for lawmakers to legalize cannabis in the country, even though the bill passed two committees of the Chamber of Deputies this week.

The Supreme Court ruled ban on personal use and cultivation of cannabis unconstitutional in 2018 and ordered Congress to end cannabis prohibition. The Senate passed the legalization project last month before the December 15 deadline.

Henceforth, the Court has extended the deadline for enacting the reform to the end of the next session, which begins in February and ends on April 30, 2021, a fourth report.

Se extiende la prórroga del plazo otorgado al Congreso de la Unión en la declaratoria general de inconstitucionalidad relativa a la despenalización del uso lúdico de la marihuana, debido a la emergencia sanitaria. pic.twitter.com/5AR4vGW7ZY

- Suprema Corte (@SCJN) December 10, 2020

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The bill aims to establish a regulated cannabis market, allowing adults aged 18 and over to purchase and possess up to 28 grams of cannabis and grow up to six plants for personal use.

The leaders of the Chamber of Deputies said they needed the postponement to further examine the legislation passed by the Senate. However, this did not prevent several committees from examining the bill, including the Human Rights and Budget and Public Accounts Committees.

In her request to extend the deadline, House Speaker Dulce María Sauri Riancho emphasized the «complexity of the issue at stake» and added that the coronavirus pandemic «has made it difficult to advance the legislative process with the depth and care necessary to address the gravity of the cannabis problem.»

«This Chamber of Deputies has been forced to implement extraordinary measures to protect the right to health and life of legislators and other officials,» she writes, «which has inevitably affected the work of committees and plenary sessions.»