Will coronavirus kill cannabis legalization in Mexico?

As part of the second phase of emergency measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the Mexican government announced postpone most legislative activities, casting serious doubt on its ability to meet the April 30 deadline set by the Supreme Court for legalizing cannabis.

No date has yet been announced for the resumption of legislative work, but the Supreme Court, which could have extended the deadline, has also suspended its activities until April 19.

At the beginning of the month, the senate committees have approved a bill on legalization, but the document still has to pass through the plenary assembly of the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, and then be signed by the President.

The Supreme Court had initially set October 2019 deadline, but after the Senate failed to reach a consensus, the deadline had been postponed to the end of April 2020.

Once the bill has been signed, the country will still have to create a regulatory agency and then set up its industry, which will operate with a system of licenses and permits to grow, process or distribute cannabis.

The latest version of the :

• authorizes the possession of 28 grams of cannabis and the cultivation of 4 plants
• restricts foreign investment in a licensee to 49%
• blocks the possibility of having several types of license (cultivation, processing, distribution, etc.) within the same company
• prioritizes disadvantaged agrarian communities for entry into the cannabis industry

In addition to recreational cannabis, the bill would also legalize medical cannabis and industrial hemp. The United States would then find itself «stuck» between two countries that can produce cannabis on a large scale and export it to other countries that have also legalized it.