Mexico Missed its Cannabis Deadline – Now What?
Over the past few weeks we have seen more headlines about what’s happening in Mexico in relation to cannabis legalization. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled for the fifth consecutive time in favor of a marijuana related case – which in turn made cannabis prohibition constitutionally illegal.
Politicians had one year to come up with the legal framework that would regulate the cannabis market. That due date was on October 28th, 2019. It’s November, by the time I’m writing this article and the Mexican politicians missed the deadline.
Missed the Deadline? WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
When the news first broke that lawmakers missed the deadline, there were plenty of speculations going around. One of the possible outcomes would result in the Supreme Court simply ruling cannabis prohibition unconstitutional, and nullifying all existing cannabis laws.
This would have meant that there would be “no laws” on cannabis in the country, meaning that anything would have been “okay”. There would essentially be a legal cannabis market with zero government oversight.
I know some of you salivated at that idea.
Nonetheless, the Supreme Court did not do this…so you can put that to rest.
Another idea that was floating around was that the vote would come through in the first weeks of November. This was mostly voiced by Morena Senator, Ricardo Monreal.
Monreal has a bill he would like to pass which would essentially create a “State Run Cannabis Company” and would be responsible for issuing licenses, creating franchises and so forth.
This bill also would have severely limited “Vertical Integration”, meaning that a single cannabis company would not be allowed to grow, process and sell cannabis. There would be a limit to the number of licenses an individual would be legally allowed to own with no way of transferring those licenses.
Additionally, most of the licenses would have been given preferentially to low income individuals and rural areas.
However, according to him there were many “business people” who were not happy with this, which was one of the reasons the vote was delayed.
Other Bills are also in contest
Monreal only has one bill he’d like to push, but there are various different bills currently floating around. Lawmakers are trying to merge all the existing bills into one that would address all of the issues and regulate the newly formed Mexican Cannabis Market.
The problem was getting everyone to agree on one set of rules that would benefit the country the most. This is why the Senate requested an extension from the Supreme Court to figure out these details.
The Supreme Court Responds
The Supreme Court responded by acknowledging that the lawmakers were undergoing a difficult task and that an extension was warranted.
They added an additional six months to the deadline, meaning that by the end of April 2020, Lawmakers are legally required to have figured out all the details.
This means that Monreal, though very vocal, doesn’t have as much power on the subject matter as he would like the public to be aware of.
The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of international companies that are looking at Mexico as a very lucrative cannabis market.
Why the International Community is interested in Mexico
As it stands now, most of the bills in Mexico would legalize cannabis consumption at the age of 18. This means that the target demographic for potential cannabis buyers increases significantly. In the US and Canada, the legal age is set to 21.
Also, considering that the population of Mexico is roughly four times larger than that of Canada, the potential for cannabis-related revenue is vast.
That is, if they are allowed to participate in the legal marketplace. While people like Sen. Monreal wants to maintain everything “within state power”, there are plenty of international investors also interested in participating within the market.
With politicians on all sides of the issue, there will still be some debate on exactly how things will happen. Right now, it’s simply too early to tell on what the final bill will look like.
What is Reginald’s Estimation
To be honest, with the current government of Mexico, it’s quite difficult to tell exactly how it will happen. We don’t know whether the state will be the major player, or whether independent players will be allowed to participate.
For the individual consumer, we know that they will be allowed to grow anywhere from 4-6 plants (in the flowering stage) at a time. This means, that legally they would be able to have more than that number, except 4-6 can only be flowered at once (per person).
However, what this might mean for grower collectives (non-profit) and caregiver organizations has still not been discussed. Perhaps, during the next six months they will figure this out.
For now, it’s merely a wait and see situation. I guess we’ll have to wait till 4/20 – 2020 to see how things will pan out.
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