The Mexican Supreme Court has ruled to remove the current ban on recreational cannabis.
The Supreme Court ruled that cannabis prohibition was unconstitutional back in 2018, and issued a requirement that the Mexican legislature embrace new policies on cannabis. A deadline was set for the legislature to create new regulations, and requested multiple extensions to do so, but no policies were finalized. According to Marijuana Moment, High Court Minister Norma Lucía Piña Hernández filed a declaration of unconstitutionality earlier this month, which led to an 8-3 vote on June 28.
Now cannabis prohibition is a thing of the past, but Mexican citizens are required to obtain a recreational use permit from a local health regulator. Once that has been approved, anyone over the age of 18 can have up to 28 grams of cannabis. Prior to this decision, residents were only allowed to possess cannabis after a court injunction was filed. “This is an historic day for liberty,” Supreme Court President Arturo Zaldivar said on Twitter. “It has confirmed that the tools of the Constitution to protect rights do work.”
The Supreme Court ruling also addressed new rules on cultivation. “The Court explained that this declaration removes the legal obstacle for the Ministry of Health, through the competent body, to authorize activities related to the self-consumption of cannabis and THC?such as sowing, cultivating, harvesting, preparing, possessing and transporting?, for recreational purposes, thus respecting the right to free development of the personality,” states a press release from the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (as translated by Google Translate). The court ruling did not address the sale of cannabis, or what would happen if someone was consuming cannabis without a permit.
In 2015, a different court decision ruled in favor of recreational cannabis—a case which Bloomberg notes as the foundation to the most recent decision made on June 28. The lawyer from worked on the 2015 case, Andres Aguinaco, says that while the Supreme Court’s decision isn’t necessarily one for decriminalization, “this is the equivalent of saying that driving cars is legal, but only if you get a license.”
Mexico removed penalties for cannabis possession for less than five grams in 2009, followed by the legalization of cannabis for medical consumption in 2017.
