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Mexico’s Supreme Court has set a precedent for the move toward legalization of marijuana in the country, ruling that an absolute ban is unconstitutional, while indirectly imposing the task of regulating the usage of cannabis upon lawmakers.
The court ruled that adults have a fundamental right to personal development, giving them the leeway to make their own decisions in their recreational activities without state interference.
Five similar rulings on the matter, gave Mexico’s Supreme Court the jurisprudence, the principle on which other legal rules must be based, in creating a precedent that all other Mexican courts will now be required to follow.
While ruling that adults have a fundamental right to decide their recreational activities, those rights are not absolute, the court said.
“That right is not absolute, and the consumption of certain substances may be regulated, but the effects provoked by marijuana do not justify an absolute prohibition of its consumption,” the Supreme Court ruling said.
The ruling also effectively passes the ball to lawmakers, now that the substance is no longer banned, leaving it up to Representatives to create legislation which determines the ways in which marijuana can be legally consumed and used.
The ruling is viewed as moving Mexico one step closer to the legalization of marijuana.
However, while the new rulings apply to the use, possession and growing of marijuana – they do not apply to sales or commercialization of cannabis.
Officials in President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government have indicated that they may legalize marijuana, Reuters reported.
Advocates of marijuana legalization say that it will take power away from the cartels, as well as, stop the flow of money into the black market. They argue that these improvements outweigh any other side effects of making cannabis legal.
