Supreme Court: ban on recreational marijuana is unconstitutional

Last Wednesday , Mexico’s Supreme Cour t ruled that an absolute ban on the recreational use of marijuana was unconstitutional , effectively leaving it to lawmakers to regulate the consumption of the drug .

Announcing it had found two legal challenges filed against the prohibition of recreational marijuana use, Mexico ’s top court crossed the threshold needed to create jurisprudence : five similar rulings on the matter.

That creates a precedent other Mexican courts will have to follow.

“This is a historic day,” Fernando Belaunzarán , an advocate of drug reform and member of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution ( PRD ), said.

The Supreme Court made its first ruling to allow a group of people to grow marijuana for personal use in November 2015.

In a statement, the court said the ruling did not create an absolute right to use marijuana and that consumption of certain substances could still be subject to regulation.

“But the effects caused by marijuana do not justify an absolute prohibition on its consumption,” it said.

The court ordered federal health regulator COFEPRIS to authorize people seeking the right to use marijuana to do so personally, “albeit without allowing them to market it, or use other narcotics or psychotropic drugs .”

Congress

would now have to act to regulate the use of marijuana in Mexico , Belaunzarán said.

Olga Sánchez Cordero

, the future Internal Affairs Minister, is taking steps to legalize marijuana , as part of a broader strategy to fight poverty and crime .

Recreational marijuana might be legal soon

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