For a great majority it was too little too late and for a tiny minority it was too much too soon, but at long last and after years of discussion the Mexican Congress has fully approved an amendment to change the General Health Law and the Federal Criminal Code to approve medical and scientific use of cannabis sativa, namely marijuana.
Last Friday at the Chamber of Deputies, congressmen (and women) passed the bill legalizing cultivation and reaping of marijuana as well as commercialization and distribution by a whopping 371 in favor, seven against and 11 abstentions. About 100 elected officials did not show for the historic vote.
The Senate had approved the same bill last March 29 and on its last day of sessions the deputies did the same.
The new mandate, now in the hands of President Enrique Peña Nieto, who pushed for it, eliminates prohibition and penalizing of acts related to the medicinal use of marijuana and scientific investigation as well as those pertaining to production and distribution, the Chamber of Deputies said.
As soon as the President inks the new ruling, it will be sent to the Health Secretariat for regulatory purposes as the new mandate is not a carte blanche to grow grass.
The legislation is certainly good news for the pharmaceutical industry which has been demanding the legalization for literally many decades, ever since the “hippie revolution” of the 1960s to do research and come up with prescription controlled drugs for a large number of ailments in which certain amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) are needed.
The new law does not, however, legalize what the millions of users are howling for, amusement use of the weed and en end to including grass in the nefarious “war against drugs” pushed by the United States of America in Mexico that’s left literally over 100 thousand people dead due to territorial drug trafficking gang wars.
This is why people are claiming that though better than nothing, this bill shortchanges the hopes of those who love smoking it and were hoping from both houses of Congress a true step forward in liberalizing and legally controlling the “ludic” use of marihuana.
In the debate, which lasted for a year and finally convinced the majority in Congress that legalizing its medical use was a step forward –as coming from the plead of many a patient – while a minority preferred just easing on the import of already processed medical products. Yet Mexican Pharmaceutical Industry Chamber (Canifarma) labs kept on pushing for the whole enchilada and got it but the bill opens up the border to legal imports.
The new law faces two immediate challenges. One, how repressive and controlling the Health Secretariat bill be? Two, implementing laws in Mexico has always been difficult because regardless of all the talk and hoopla about “anti-corruption” and “transparency” those in charge of awarding permits will most likely like to profit from drug manufacturing legalization. For sure, there’s going to be big money involved.
Or like the old jokes goes, the bureaucrat says “Want permit expediency? Put your bribe in the palm of my hand.”
The other side of the coin is if this is a step to legalize marijuana in Mexico. It is already legal in parts of Canada and the United States and definitely in Uruguay, where government controls commercialization and gets a tax for it.
Given circumstances, Mexico lags way behind because of its consistency in criminalizing the use of grass regardless that in a nation where herbal medicine is part of the traditional native culture, the fight against it is still raging.
Way deep down there’s the moral – or immoral, depending – side of society. The legalization of medical marijuana will definitely open up the debate for fully legalizing consumption for entertainment purposes. Just as there are millions of illegal consumers, there are millions of Mexican who still see down on users.
But ever since the Mexican Supreme Court awarded permits to several users to grow their own grass two years ago, this is indeed the longest step forward on bringing an end to a conflict created by the United States with its “evil weed” policies of yesteryear that are pretty much the law in Mexico today, for good or bad.
But the one fact is that a legislative round has been fought and won by those who found comfort in the medical use of marijuana products; the round to legalize it completely for public use at will has now begun.