Mexico Issues First Permit to Grow and Use Marijuana for Recreational Purposes

Mexico Issues First Permit to Grow and Use Marijuana for Recreational Purposes

By The Guardian

The Mexican government has granted the first permits allowing for growing and possession of marijuana for personal use.

The government’s medical protection agency said the permits will apply only to the four plaintiffs who won a November supreme court ruling.

The permits won’t allow smoking marijuana in the presence of children or anyone who hasn’t given consent.

The permits also don’t allow the sale or distribution of the drug.

Ironically, the plaintiffs said that even with the permits in hand, they don’t plan to smoke the marijuana permitted. They said they filed the suit to make a point about prohibitionist policies being wrong, not to get their hands on legal weed.

“The objective is to change the policy, not to promote consumption,” said Juan Francisco Torres Landa, one of the four plaintiffs. “We are going to set the example; we are not going to consume it.”

The court’s ruling doesn’t imply a general legalization. But if the court rules the same way on five similar petitions, it would then establish the precedent to change the law and allow general recreational use.

The government medical protection agency, known as COFEPRIS, said it has received 155 applications to get such permits. But other applicants would have to go through the appeals process, something supporters say would probably take at least a year.

The court ruled that growing and consuming marijuana is covered under the right of “free development of personality”.

President Enrique Peña Nieto has repeatedly said he opposes legalization, as do a majority of Mexicans surveyed in recent polls.