A top Mexican senator says that there’s agreement among key legislative leaders of multiple parties to prioritize marijuana legalization legislation this session.
Senate Majority Leader Ricardo Monreal Avila of the ruling MORENA party made the comments following a meeting of the Political Coordination Board on Monday. He said that the panel “agreed to prioritize cannabis laws,” among other issues like cybersecurity, according to a translation.
En reunión de la Jucopo, acordamos priorizar las leyes de cannabis, catastro y registro, movilidad, ciberseguridad, economía circular y Código Nacional de Procedimientos Civiles y Familiares. El propósito es aprobarlas en este periodo de sesiones. pic.twitter.com/shwrnZpsm9
— Ricardo Monreal A. (@RicardoMonrealA) November 8, 2021
Monreal and other top legislators have been emphasizing the need to establish regulations for marijuana in recent months.
The Mexican Supreme Court declared nearly three years ago that the country’s prohibition on the personal possession and cultivation of cannabis was unconstitutional. Lawmakers were then obligated to enact the policy change but have since been unable to reach a consensus on legislation to put in place regulations for a marijuana program.
At the request of legislators, the court agreed to extend its deadline for Congress to formally end prohibition on multiple occasions. But because of the repeated failed attempts to meet those deadlines, justices ultimately voted to end criminalization on their own in June.
Monreal previously said that the stage is set for lawmakers to actually pass a marijuana legalization bill during the new session after multiple attempts in recent years fell short of getting over the finish line.
“With the beginning of the LXV Legislature, a new possibility was opened to discuss and approve this long-delayed law, which would put an end to 100 years of prohibitionist policy and criminalization of the consumption of the cannabis flower, opening, in turn, a multimillion dollar market nationally and internationally, which could be beneficial for the economic reactivation of our country,” he said last month.
La Jucopo, que preside @RicardoMonrealA, acordó que para el cierre de este periodo ordinario de sesiones será una prioridad para el Senado aprobar la regulación de cannabis, así como las leyes de Economía Circular y de Movilidad y Seguridad Vial. https://t.co/lnDKu5zfkL
— Senadores Morena (@MorenaSenadores) November 9, 2021
Senate President Olga Sánchez Cordero, who previously served at a cabinet-level position in President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration, said weeks later that “there is no longer room for the prohibitionist policy.”
“We are the Mexico of freedoms, and the people are aware of it,” she said. Lawmakers will take up implementation legislation “in the coming weeks or months—but I do not want more time to pass,” she said.
After the Supreme Court independently…
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