Originally published 2020-12-08.
Yes, Mexico's Senate did vote to legalise cannabis, but the vote did not make it legal on its own. On 19 November 2020 senators approved a bill for adult recreational use, medical research and industrial hemp by 82 votes to 18, with 7 abstentions. The proposal then stalled in the lower house. In the end it was the Supreme Court, not Congress, that removed the ban on personal use in June 2021, and Mexico still has no legal cannabis shops.
Below is what the bill proposed, why lawmakers were voting at all, what the 2021 court ruling changed, and how much legalisation can realistically do against the cartels.
What the Senate approved in November 2020
The bill was drafted as a full legal framework, not a simple decriminalisation. It covered adult use, home growing, research and industrial hemp, which it defined as cannabis with less than 1% THC. Medical cannabis was left to separate rules. Adults aged 18 and over would be allowed to carry a limited amount and grow plants at home, while businesses could apply for licences to grow, process and sell. Licence rules were written to give preference to farmers and communities hit hardest by the drug war.
A new regulator, to be called the Mexican Institute for Cannabis Regulation and Control, was meant to write the detailed rules and hand out licences. Some early press reports gave a 200-gram home possession figure and a 12% sales tax earmarked for addiction treatment. Neither figure appears in later summaries of the bill, so treat them with caution. The possession limit reported when the lower house voted in March 2021 was 28 grams.
Even the bill's supporters said sales would not start quickly. Speaking to Forbes in December 2020, Mexican cannabis lawyer Elias Lisbona Jassan said the new institute would need about six months after the law took effect just to begin working. The draft then gave it 18 more months to issue adult-use licences, and he did not expect a recreational market before 2022.
Why Congress was voting: the Supreme Court's deadline
The vote was not a sudden change of heart. It came from a string of court cases that began in 2015, when the Supreme Court sided with four members of a group called SMART (the Mexican Society for Responsible and Tolerant Personal Use). The court ruled 4–1 that banning them from growing cannabis for their own use broke their constitutional right to the free development of their personality.
Under Mexican law, once the court rules the same way in five cases, the decision becomes binding precedent. That happened on 31 October 2018. The court then ordered Congress to rewrite the law, first within 90 days and then, after several extensions, by 15 December 2020. The Senate vote in November was the legislature trying to meet that deadline.
Some steps had already been taken. Since 2009, people caught with up to five grams have been directed towards treatment rather than prosecuted. In 2017 President Enrique Peña Nieto signed a law allowing medical products made from cannabis, although the rules to run that system were delayed for years.
What happened to the bill after the Senate
The Chamber of Deputies passed an amended version on 10 March 2021 by 316 votes to 129. Deputies dropped the plan for a new cannabis institute and gave the job to an existing body, the National Commission Against Addictions. Because the text had changed, it went back to the Senate. The Senate never held the final vote, and the session ended with the law unfinished.
With Congress past its deadline, the Supreme Court acted on its own. On 28 June 2021 the justices voted 8–3 for a "general declaration of unconstitutionality". This struck down the parts of the health law that banned recreational use. Adults could now ask Cofepris, the federal health regulator, for a free permit to grow, possess and transport cannabis for their own use.
Is cannabis legal in Mexico today?
Only partly, and that confuses many visitors. The key points are these:
- Personal use with a permit: adults can apply to Cofepris for permission to grow and use cannabis privately. The permit is personal and cannot be passed on.
- No legal sales: there is no licensed retail market, so buying or selling cannabis is still a crime.
- Criminal laws remain: federal and state penal codes were never fully updated, and people already in prison for selling or possessing cannabis have no clear route to release.
- Medical use: medical cannabis products have been legal since 2017, under a separate set of rules.
Travellers should not assume that what is allowed in Canada or Uruguay is allowed in Mexico. Smoking in public, using it near children or driving after use are not covered by any permit.
Could legalisation weaken the cartels?
This was the main political argument for the bill. Mexico's drug war, which began when President Felipe Calderón sent troops into Michoacán in December 2006, has cost an enormous number of lives. Government figures counted at least 60,000 deaths by the end of his term in 2012, and independent estimates passed 120,000 by 2013, not including tens of thousands of missing people. Groups such as the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels have used drug money to buy weapons, bribe officials and win loyalty in poor areas.
Most of that violence comes from supplying the United States, not from Mexican users. Mexico is the main route for cocaine made in Colombia, and Mexican groups are major wholesalers of methamphetamine, heroin and, increasingly, fentanyl. Researchers and Mexican officials also point out that many of the guns used in the conflict were bought in the US.
That is why most experts are careful about promises. Taking cannabis out of the black market can cut police work spent on small users and give farmers a legal crop. But cannabis is widely reported to be a shrinking share of cartel income, partly because many US states now grow their own legally. A legal market in Mexico would hurt the cartels' cannabis business, but not their cocaine, synthetic drug, extortion or fuel-theft operations.
Mexico in the global picture
Uruguay became the first country to legalise recreational cannabis in 2013, and Canada followed in 2018. South Africa's Constitutional Court allowed private use and home growing by adults in 2018. With roughly 126 million people, Mexico was expected to become the largest legal market in the world if the Senate bill had become law. Instead it ended up somewhere in the middle: legal to use with a permit, but with no legal way to buy.
The story shows how drug reform often happens in Latin America. Courts protect personal freedom first, and lawmakers struggle to build the regulated market afterwards.
Sources: Cannigma: Mexican Senate approves cannabis legalization bill (Nov 2020); Forbes: Is Mexico really going to legalize marijuana for recreational use?; Cannabis Business Times: Chamber of Deputies vote (March 2021); CNN: Mexico's Supreme Court decriminalizes recreational cannabis (June 2021); Wikipedia: Cannabis in Mexico; Wikipedia: Mexican drug war; Wikipedia: Legality of cannabis.
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