Marijuana in Mexico: What it’s like to be a cannabis user right now
MEXICO CITY – “I have the best job in the world,” says Alejandra * as she rolls one joint after the other in a cannabis pharmacy in Mexico City. Clouds of smoke fill the air. A steady stream of customers comes and goes. Some buy their pre-rolls, but most buy large quantities of around a dozen different types of flowers.
This is how weed is now being sold in Mexico because the country’s marijuana laws are in weird legal limbo. Cannabis is not yet completely legal, but neither is it strictly illegal.
At a pharmacy in Mexico City, you might (wrongly) believe that cannabis is already legal.
Alejandra’s pharmacy is holding back. There is no advertising outside of the store. Part of the inventory is kept in suitcases in the event of a raid. But from the indoor scene, one might believe that cannabis is legal in Mexico, as many people – even locals – often mistakenly do.
Mexican lawmakers continue to consider legalizing and opening up one of the world’s largest cannabis industries, but an impressive gray market is already developing – and fast.
“People crave cannabis products, so we want to make sure we’re doing things right with or without government approval,” Lorena Beltrán of the Latin American Cannabis Alliance recently told Leafly.
Marijuana in Mexico: A Special Series
Real company formation, ready for legalization
The Latin American Cannabis Alliance hosted an international cannabis investment summit in Cancun last month, one of the few conferences to have taken place in Mexico. “We have over 14 cannabis nonprofits and almost 60 private companies under one roof. The industry is expanding and it’s not going anywhere, ”said Beltrán.
While domestic demand is met to some extent, many cannabis products are being smuggled out of the US for both medicinal and recreational use. “The Mexican FDA is not doing anything about it,” says Beltrán. “The government must try to keep up with the growing unregulated industry.”
A growing movement of consumers is smoking weed in public while others are increasingly growing it at home
Encouraged by the rulings of the Mexican Supreme Court, which lifted the cannabis ban several times since 2015, many marijuana companies are already expanding. They are preparing for a fully legal market that could open as early as fall 2022.
Weed available at pharmacies, cafes, restaurants, and spas
To be clear, cannabis sales are not yet officially legal. But that hasn’t stopped the rapid growth of gray market deals across the country.
Business owners often have on-call lawyers ready to fight if harassed about selling cannabis.
Today you can find cannabis in a number of underground pharmacies, cafes, and restaurants; and even day spas and massage studios. These business owners often have on-call lawyers ready to fight when faced with the wrath of law enforcement.
The movement has been growing for some time. Mexico’s first Cannabis Cup took place three years ago in Guadalajara, followed by the Northern Cannabis Cup near Monterrey in 2019. In recent years, Mexico’s two largest cities have hosted cannabis festivals called Cannafest and Expoweed.
Home growers thrive
“The market is being democratized,” says Jorge Hernández Tinajero, president of the Mexican Association of Cannabis Studies, grow shop owner and longstanding advocate of legalization. “More and more people are starting to grow and realizing that ten plants bring in a lot of grass – so they start selling a little. With more breeders in the market, there is less risk that big fish will eat the others, and so criminal structures lose influence. ”
Accurate estimates of the number of people using and growing cannabis in Mexico are difficult to come by (estimated to be 500,000 consumers), but a legal industry could be worth more than $ 2 billion a year. Corporations are already demanding that the government provide legal access to banking services, which has been a particularly difficult issue for cannabis companies in the United States.
Good land for farmers
Government officials estimate that approximately 114,000 acres of land are illegally cultivated in Mexico. These crops are grown primarily in the northern states of Sinaloa, Chihuahua, and Sonora, with additional crops coming from Oaxaca in the south.
Data from the UN and the US Drug Enforcement Administration suggest that Mexico could be the second largest cannabis producer in the world – growing up to 27,000 tons per year. One report found that 80% of the country’s area would be suitable for growing cannabis.
Ownership boundaries remain narrow
For now, there is still a risk of criminal penalties for possession of more than 5 grams of cannabis. Selling cannabis in any quantity is against the law. The police are still arresting people for these crimes despite the Supreme Court rulings.
These rulings, which began in 2015, made the ban on personal cannabis use unconstitutional. The court ruled that the state must give permission to adults who want to grow and smoke. Legislators have since failed to pass a law on legalization that would codify the judgment of the court. A gap remains between the court’s wishes and local reality after all early property and consumption requests are denied.
Police officers targeting young and poor people
Police are still arresting people for cannabis, and anecdotal evidence suggests that young and poor people are attacked much more often.
“The reality is that no matter how much you have, there is a risk that the police will arrest you.”
– Frida Ibarra, Mexico United Against Crime
“In some socio-economically privileged areas of the country, the police are not very present and do not try to arrest people of any particular position or ethnicity,” says Frida Ibarra, lawyer for the NGO Mexico United Against Crime. “If you have more than five grams of cannabis, you can be punished for it under the law. But in reality there is a risk that you will be arrested by the police, no matter how much you have. “
In 2018, the most recent year for which public data is available, 11,000 people in Mexico were charged with possession of less than 100 grams of cannabis. These included 2,300 youths and many thousands more were undoubtedly arrested by the police and forced to pay bribes, even for possession of very small amounts.
“There are hundreds or even thousands of innocent people in prison who shouldn’t be there that I hope we can get rid of with this new ordinance,” said Senator Alvarez Icaza, an independent senator who advocates the issue has made. “We are in the 21st century and we need to use the day to quickly develop a rights-based approach to cannabis use that is neither market dominated nor defined by inequality.”
Icaza claimed that it was “very common” for police to plant extra cannabis in people to push them over the limit. “Officials use cannabis on the young and poor to get illegal money,” said Icaza.
Matias *, a 22-year-old student, was arrested by police in Querétaro this month and forced to pay bribes, even though he had far less than 5 grams in his possession. “We hadn’t even started smoking,” he recalls. “We just sat there and enjoyed the view.”
“The police came with their flashlights just to get money out of people,” said Matias. “They searched our pockets and found a small bag of weed with enough for a joint. They said, ‘We’ll take you to the train station’ and even took out their handcuffs. “
“They threatened us aggressively for about 20 minutes. But when we protested, one officer finally said, “Well, tell me what to do? Because I don’t want to take you to the train station. ‘ They took out my wallet and I said, ‘This is all I have, take it.’ They let us go and let us keep the weed for my MX $ 350. “
Trouble for medical patients outside of pharmacies
Elsewhere, in a wealthy barrio in Mexico City, 30-year-old Rodrigo * was arrested outside a cannabis club last year. The police searched him and found 70 grams of cannabis that he took home to be processed into a medicinal oil.
“An aggressive policeman approached my window,” he said. “He asked me to get out of the car. I refused and asked if he had a reason. He said contemptuously that I looked like a criminal and forced myself to get out of the car. “
Rodrigo told police that he used medical cannabis as an antiretroviral agent to treat his HIV infection. As an activist, he is part of a group whose members, he told Leafly, “are dedicated to defending the human rights of cannabis users”. The police tried to bring charges against him. “They took me to a prosecutor’s office and I waited there for hours in a law firm with several others in the same position,” he recalls.
The incident ended when the prosecutor told police that they were not prosecuting drug offenses, Rodrido said. “They ordered them to drop the charges because I am a cannabis user, not a kidnapper,” he says. “Unfortunately, the police who violated my human rights went unpunished and took my marijuana.”
* Names have been changed to protect the individuals involved from possible criminal prosecution.
Mattha Busby
Mattha Busby is a freelance writer based in Mexico. His work has appeared in the Guardian, Observer, Vice, GQ, and other publications.
View article by Mattha Busby
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