Will Mexico legalize cannabis before the end of December?

Discussion of cannabis reform in Mexico gains momentum in 2015 when the Supreme Court ruled in favour of four people who had grown their own cannabis for personal use. Unambiguously, the Court ruled that the prohibition of cannabis violated the human right of free expression of a person's personality.

In 2018, the same Supreme Court ruled that access to cannabis was a right, It was also argued that cannabis prohibition was unconstitutional.

Transposing this decision into law, however, takes time. Between political agendas and the COVID crisis, numerous extensions of time were granted to the legislature in an attempt to comply with the Court's opinion. In the end, in June of this year, the Court ruled once again to overturn the prohibition of cannabis that still prevailed and decriminalize its recreational use.

The stalemate over recreational use also has an impact on the industrial uses of hemp, which for the time being are all in the same boat. Only medical cannabis, legalized in 2017, has its own specific regulation.

Today, the President of the Mexican Senate, Olga Sánchez Cordero, believes that cannabis regulation reform will be definitively adopted by December 2021.

The next step, however, will be to implement the regulations. In a nutshell, The National Addiction Commission will be responsible for authorizing and enforcing the use and cultivation of cannabis by adults over the age of 18.

The bill also attempts to mitigate the influence of large cannabis companies. For the first five years following implementation of legalization, at least 40% of commercial cannabis licenses should be granted to people from indigenous, low-income or historically marginalized communities.