Mexico & Nafta - July 2018 (ISSN 1741-444X)

On 20 June, Canada became the first member of the G-20 group of industrialised countries to formally legalise the recreational use of marijuana; the legislation comes into effect on 17 October. A major part of the argument used by Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in favour of supporting the move was that legalisation would allow state oversight of production of the drug, thus reducing the role of organised crime, as legal marijuana must be produced by certain authorised companies – many of which are already producing marijuana for medicinal purposes, after this was approved in Canada in 2001. The example set by Canada may well further encourage those in Mexico pushing for the legalisation of marijuana as a means of combatting the rising levels of violent crime associated with drug trafficking.

Mexico’s former president Vicente Fox (2000-2006) has been outspoken in his support for the full legalisation of marijuana in Mexico (where medicinal marijuana was legalised in 2017) and internationally, claiming that it is the only way to curb the spiral of drug-related violence in Mexico. For Fox, among others, the argument is that the majority of the Mexican people wants to see an end to the violence, and thus this offers a mandate for legalisation. Others, including, Tourism Minister Enrique de la Madrid, have noted the potential advantages that full legalisation could bring for certain Mexican tourist destinations, such as the states of Baja California and Quintana Roo, in terms of encouraging visitors wishing to use the narcotic recreationally (in the style, perhaps, of Amsterdam’s cannabis coffee shops), and to increase security in these areas.

However, despite the push from De la Madrid and certain sectors of the government, recent surveys have shown that most Mexicans are not in favour of marijuana legalisation. For some, legalisation is simply seen as a superficial response to deep-seated issues of poverty, inequality and social exclusion in some parts of the country. For others, recreational drug use is perceived as a social ill, equivalent to alcohol abuse, and they believe that an increase in consumption levels would have a negative effect on Mexican society.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the policy debate, however, emerges from survey findings (carried out by opinion poll company De las Heras Demotécnia in January 2018), in which 87% of participants claimed that they did not use marijuana because they did not want to, without any reference to the drug’s legal status. Although it is likely that a great deal of social desirability bias skews these survey results, it suggests that the potential pool of active users in Mexico may be relatively small. Proponents of legalisation have used this to argue, in the words of Aristóteles Sandoval, the governor of Jalisco state, that it is not marijuana that kills young Mexicans, but rather violent disputes between rival drug traffickers.

Opponents to marijuana legalisation, however, have argued that the consumption argument is distinct from the supply argument – particularly as much of the violence in border states is related to drug transhipment routes rather than domestic drug supply channels – and that legalisation of marijuana would respond to the demands of a small sector of society without resolving the more widespread issue of tackling drug smuggling.

The issue was forced onto the national stage with the – ultimately unsuccessful – bid by Senator Armando Ríos Piter to stand as an independent presidential candidate in the 1 July general election. Although Ríos Piter, an advocate of marijuana legalisation, did not make it onto the ballot, he was victorious in the case he brought before the supreme court (SCJN) on his right to freely consume the marijuana. On 13 June the SCJN ruled that banning the senator from the consumption of marijuana was a breach of the personal freedoms allocated to him by Mexico’s constitution. This ruling declared that the constitutional rights of an individual in this regard supersede the prohibition on marijuana consumption set out by the Ley General de Salud. As such, the ruling may well have paved the way for the full legislation of marijuana, as any constitutional barriers to this seem to have been removed.

Although Ríos Piter ultimately lent his support in the presidential race to José Antonio Meade, the defeated presidential candidate of the federally ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), reducing his chances of gaining much influence in the incoming government, the legalisation cause has also been adopted by former SCJN justice Olga Sánchez Cordero (1995-2016). Sánchez is a supporter of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the presidential candidate of the leftist opposition Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (Morena) party, who has won the presidential race.

Like his campaign rivals, López Obrador has said that one of his main objectives would be to reduce the levels of violence in Mexico. López Obrador’s promises to introduce radical changes to Mexico’s institutions as part of his pledge to combat government corruption may well incorporate a radical re-think of the ‘war on drugs’ and this could include the full legalisation of marijuana.

In addition to his strong messages about corruption, which he has linked to both social and economic inequality and high levels of violence, López Obrador is a leftist politician who has been critical of US President Donald Trump. The example of Canada, and of Uruguay, which legalised recreational marijuana use in 2013, under the leftist Frente Amplio (FA) coalition government led by former president José Mujica (2010-2015), may well influence López Obrador’s policymaking direction in this sphere. Canada’s decision to legalise recreational marijuana has been criticised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Unodc) and its monitoring body, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), for undermining the provisions of the numerous international drug control treaties to which it is party, and for neglecting its international obligations.

Yet it is exactly these kinds of oversight institutions that have also been condemned by politicians in the Andes, notably Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, who argue that their position as marijuana producing countries is distinct from that of consumer countries; and that they should not be subject to the same level of enforcement controls. If López Obrador is seeking to mark out a distinct policy trajectory from that of his predecessors for himself, he may therefore opt to loosen controls on marijuana consumption and production in Mexico. It seems unlikely, however, that any dramatic changes will be made in the immediate future.

Although the recent SCJN ruling has removed a constitutional barrier, and the Canadian legislation has dismantled the notion that legalisation of cannabis for recreational use could turn Mexico into an international pariah, López Obrador and his prospective new government are likely to take some time to take stock. While López Obrador’s election suggests that Mexicans are ready for change, and for an end to the violence and corruption plaguing the country, previous survey evidence suggests that they are far from united in their opinions on the impact of the full legalisation of marijuana. Furthermore, various concerns have been raised about the finer details of the Canadian legislation: the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs has expressed fears that it could simply allow the same drug traffickers to operate on the right side of the law. If Canadians fear the co-optation of the legalised marijuana sector by criminal gangs, then their Mexican counterparts, who have experienced extreme levels of violence linked to the drugs trade, should be even more wary.