Mexican legislators discuss the benefits legal cannabis would bring

Cannabis is still a controversial topic in Mexico, as many legislators debate if the legalization of this plant could really bring substantial benefits to the country. Some have pointed out that cannabis would not only bring economical benefits but would also help achieve peace in the country and lower both crime and mafia activities. Still, discussion about the legalization continue in the country.

After the Mexican Council on cannabis and hemp emphasized various benefits of legalizing cannabis last May, the key question now is whether legalizing cannabis will bring peace to the country.

According to the Council’s figures, regulating cannabis represents annual profits of $6 billion for Mexico, a figure that would allow it to deal with the current economic recession.

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Cannabis legalization as a way to bring peace in Mexico

In this sense, Senator Julio Menchaca Salazar, president of the Justice Commission, pointed out that legalizing cannabis will bring peace to Mexico, while also giving greater certainty to farmers.

“We must regulate cannabis to achieve peace because we no longer want the war that marked our lives and left thousands of families in distress to continue,” said the lawmaker.

According to Menchaca, the legalization of cannabis will allow the establishment of conditions to benefit the countryside. These guidelines will be without the siege of organized crime and under state control to pacify the country and to respect the rights of consumers.

Despite that, the official said that what is essential is the control of the state over cannabis production. That would be beneficial in order to generate income, to have control over the safety of the production and to regulate the quality of the plant.

“What needs to be done is to know where a plant comes from so that the Mexican state has control of the product,” said Menchaca Salazar.

Farmers are the primordial worker group that will benefit from cannabis

Menchaca also argued that farmers will benefit from the development of the Mexican cannabis industry. “The farmers are going to have a huge source of legal income, which will generate taxes in a market of billions of dollars, with the control, supervision, and monitoring of the state,” he said.

In this sense, Lucía Trasviña Waldenrath, president of the Public Security Commission, and Arturo Bours Griffith, Senator for Morena, alluded to the need to protect farmers from organized crime.

That is necessary because, for the past 100 years, farmers have faced a dilemma: to plant cannabis out of necessity or under the threat of the drug cartels.

Legislating cannabis is still a controversial subject between Mexican legislators

The legislators pointed out that cannabis had a negative impact on the lives of the farmers. Such impact is visible in the form of dispossession, forced displacement, and forced subordination to cultivate or rent out their land.

All this in the context of the fact that the productive spaces in the countryside for the cultivation of cannabis are led by organized crime. These criminals organize the production, distribution and commercialization of cannabis.

Regarding the controversy over whether this law will benefit private investment, Menchaca said that priority will not be given to foreign imports, but rather that national cannabis production will be respected.

It is worth noting that this law is an unfulfilled demand that both consumers and civil organizations have been asking for at least a decade.

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(Featured image by ZENITH LR via Pixabay)

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First published in Nacion Cannabis, a third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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