Connect with us

Mexico’s Supreme Court Ruling Rolls Out Cannabis Legalization

Mexico's Supreme Court Ruling Rolls Out Cannabis Legalization

World

Mexico’s Supreme Court Ruling Rolls Out Cannabis Legalization

Here’s a mind-blowing geography lesson for you. If, as Green Rush Daily has predicted, Canada and California legalize and Mexico follows suit, that would mean that marijuana would be legal all the way from the Arctic Circle in the north to the Tropic of Cancer in the south! And we bring that up because there’s reason to get psyched about a serious development in the weed world. In major marijuana news out of Mexico yesterday, the New York Times reports that Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled for individuals’ right to grow, use, and distributed marijuana. Hells yes!

Mexico’s Supreme Court Issues Landmark Decision

Yep, you heard that right: it’s not just that cannabis has been legalized for recreational use. Individual, everyday Mexican people can grow it. They can sell it. They can give it away. They can wipe their asses with it.

It’s one of the biggest rulings for cannabis freedom in the entire world. So how did the Mexican Supreme Court arrive at their much-celebrated vote?

Well, they decided that the cultivation and consumption of marijuana constituted a FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT. 

Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled 4-to-1 Wednesday that outlawing the possession and use of the marijuana plant represents a violation of fundamental human rights.

“It’s a monumental case,” said Hannah Hetzer of the Drug Policy Alliance, a drug reform advocacy group, in an interview.

“It was argued on human rights grounds, which is unusual, and it’s taking place in Mexico, the epicenter of some of the worst effects of the war on drugs.”

Now you may remember—unless your short term is a bit fuzzy!—that this author wrote a post predicting a wave of legalization across North America, triggered first by Mexican legalization, Trudeau’s election to PM in Canada on a legalization platform, and the inevitable tide of state legalization across America.

—Damn, I love always being right!

Supreme Court Ruling Could Radically Reform Mexico Drug Laws

So even though we said Mexican legalization was coming, we didn’t expect it to take this particular course, which is why we’re informing you lovely Green Rush Daily readers about it.

The interesting thing about the Supreme Court’s Ruling is that it leaves untouched Mexico’s current drug laws, which are among the most conservative and punitive in the world.

Of course, those policies, along with U.S. enforcement of the “War on Drugs” have been catastrophic for the people of Mexico who suffer from routine violence and government corruption due to a drug trade undeterred, it seems, by any legislative action.

The ruling does, however, pave the way for the rapid and radical overturning of those laws for more progressive legalization measures that stand to surpass even those in the United States.

And this is because, based on the Supreme Court’s ruling, any legalization measures will have to be based on a legal principle of human rights and individual freedom, which could lead to releasing thousands of nonviolent drug offenders from prison.

Additionally, Mexicans will not have to fear being outgrown by corporate grow ops or marijuana industries, since the ruling implies a protection of the individual’s right to grow and distribute marijuana.

One can only hope that this ruling could become a model for a similar decision in the U.S. judicial system.

Mexico Supreme Court Decides to Get SMART About Cannabis

The remarkable thing is that we have just four people to thank for this earth-shattering development on the weed legalization front.

The Wall Street Journal reports how “the case was brought by four members of Mexicans United for Responsible and Tolerant Consumption (the acronym SMART in Spanish), a group set up specifically to challenge laws on this issue in Mexico.”

Starting in 2013, they began filing legal arguments to be able to grow, possess and consume marijuana.

So let’s give a big smokey thank you to Mr. Torres Landa and Mr. Santacruz and the two other unnamed folks Spanish who took SMART’s case all the way to the Supreme Court in a country super-hostile to drug reform of any kind.

It seems like they found the right people!

Their argument hinges on the concept of “the right to the free development of one’s personality,” which is enshrined in Mexico’s constitution.

Essentially, it amounts to something like a right to self-determination: The state can’t prevent you from say, eating junk lots of junk food, even if it’s not great for your health.

So let’s hear from one of the Supreme Court Justices herself: “This court recognized the reach of personal freedom,” Justice Olga Sánchez said in voting for the ruling, noting that the same chamber also legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. “People decide the course of their lives.”

The strangest thing about all this is that, at least when it comes to Marijuana, our neighbors to the south deserve to be called the “Land of the Free” more than we in the U.S. do, at least for now! Congrats, Mexico!

More in World

To Top