The Mexican Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to approve the legal use of medicinal marijuana. While the move is seen as a step forward to help patients, the wider drug legalization debate continues as the country reels from years of violence and instability from a bloody drug war.
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The Senate voted 98-7 in favor with one abstention to allow the use of marijuana for medical and therapeutic purposes. It will allow Mexico’s Secretariat of Health to grant licenses for marijuana-derived substances with a THC concentration of 1 percent or less to be exported, imported, marketed and sold in Mexico. It must also pass through the lower house of Congress before becoming law.
Planting, growing and harvesting marijuana plants will not attract a punishment if they are for medical and scientific purposes. A number of senators pointed out that marijuana products can be used to treat a number of diseases such as cancer, AIDS and epilepsy. Around 5,000 patients in Mexico are thought to currently lack access to marijuana-based medicine that could help them with their conditions.
Cristina Diaz from President Enrique Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, also known as the PRI, said that the vote was “a historic achievement” as it will give certainty to the development of an industry for medical use of the drug and will eliminate the current legal loopholes for entrepreneurs and families using marijuana medically.
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While Peña Nieto has been open to a number of reforms and debate on Mexico drug policy, he has been opposed to fully legalizing marijuana. The bill will now move on from the Senate to the lower house of Congress for consideration.
In November last year, the Supreme Court deemed that marijuana prohibition was unconstitutional and ruled that four people from the advocacy group Mexican Society for Tolerant Consumption, also known its Spanish acronym SMART, could grow their own marijuana for personal consumption. The decision has opened the door for a wider debate on legalization and the government has since allowed imports of marijuana-based medicine on a case-by-case basis.
"It's been years that we've been fighting for acknowledgment and approval and recognition of the medical and therapeutic uses of cannabis, and today we finally have something," said Lisa Sanchez, director of the non-profit organization Mexico United Against Crime, which argues that liberalizing drug policy will help to cut crime.
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Miguel Barbosa from the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution, also known as PRD, said that Peña Nieto and the Mexican Congress had given in to prohibitionist advocacy groups, adding that the legislation was “well below the expectations of society.” Barbosa noted that a proposal to raise the amount that an individual can carry for personal use with criminalization from 5 grams to 28 grams was not approved.
Other senators also criticized the rejection of a proposal to allow the release of thousands of young prisoners arrested for possessing more than 5 grams of marijuana.
Mexico’s so-called drug war has been raging for over 10 years and has been continued under Peña Nieto's administrations. The militarized approach to fighting drug cartels has led to widespread violence, corruption and impunity, and many now believe it is time for a change of strategy.
Senator Angelica de la Peña Gomez made reference to the years of violence and human rights abuses under a prohibitionist model and argued that there was increasing consensus “to do something different in drug policy.