Mexico's Senate approves sweeping cannabis legalization billPosted by On


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s Senate approved a landmark cannabis legalization bill in a landslide vote on Thursday, paving the way for the creation of the world’s largest legal marijuana market if the initiative passes the next hurdle in the lower house of Congress.

Marijuana leaves are seen next to Mexico’s Senate building at the protest cannabis garden of the Cannabico Mexican Movement in Mexico City, Mexico November 19, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Senators voted 82 to 18 to approve the measure, with seven abstentions.

Lawmakers are rushing to secure final approval before the end of the current congressional session in December. If enacted, the reform would mark a major shift in a country where drug cartel violence in recent years has claimed over 100,000 lives.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that recreational marijuana should be permitted, just one year after lawmakers legalized it for medicinal use.

Socially conservative President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has shied away from publicly backing the legalization push, but neither has he opposed it, and senior cabinet members like Interior Minister Olga Sanchez have openly called for a shift to legalization and regulation.

Lopez Obrador’s left-of-center Morena party, which backed the initiative, holds a majority in both chambers of Congress with its allies.

The bill aims to “improve living conditions” and…

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