Mexico’s Baja California favors the use of medical cannabis

National cannabis legalization in Mexico has fallen behind due to the coronavirus pandemic, as the discussion has been pushed until next year. Still, some states has been taking legal decisions to depenalize the use of this plant, such as Baja California. The province decided to approve a cannabis-based medical treatment for 30 patients of the Red Lotus Foundation to treat symptoms of cancer and epilepsy.

The free and sovereign state of Baja California (northeast), that vast sword-shaped peninsula that looks like it belongs to the United States but belongs to Mexico, has already taken a step forward in regards to cannabis. It did so, even amidst the sluggish management at the federal level to achieve the decriminalization of the plant.

The federal judiciary ordered the Secretary of Health to provide medical treatment with cannabis to 30 patients of the Red Lotus Foundation, using this substance therapeutically to alleviate the symptoms of illnesses such as cancer and epilepsy, said their legal advisor, Emanuel Farías Camarero.

Farias Camarero said that the judges’ decision was unanimous in the Sixth Collegiate Tribunal of the XV Judicial Circuit based in Mexicali.

“Since this is a matter related to the right to health, this court considers that the social interest is not affected, nor are public order provisions contravened, because society is interested in guaranteeing the right to health protection for individuals. In particular, the applicants may have access to the treatment of the medicine necessary to reduce the discomfort and/or pain caused by the disease they suffer, pending the outcome of the main trial.”

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Minors will be especially protected by this decision

The ruling especially considers “minors, because the effects on children would be greater than those that society might suffer.” The cannabis patients were notified of the precautionary measure on July 10th, 2020.

Judges Alejandro Gracia Gómez, José Encarnación Aguilar Moya, and acting secretary Víctor Manuel Valenzuela Caperón were the ones who decided on the appeal.

It started with a demand for the Secretary of Health to harmonize the regulations on the therapeutic use of cannabis. This was a circumstance to which this authority had been obliged for three years. And as a result of the reform of the General Health Law published in June 2017.

The judges also based their decision on a legal precedent that the Supreme Court issued in August 2019. On that occasion, a minor user of medical cannabis was protected. Both trials are identical in terms of the subject matter of the claim.

Mexico’s legal principle is what made this legal decision possible

That is why the legal principle known as the appearance of good law was demonstrated.

It allows judges in Mexico to make a preliminary value judgment. Furthermore, that allows them to estimate that the main trial will be resolved in a manner favorable to the interests of the complainants.

After more than a year of litigation, the Red Lotus Foundation is once again fulfilling one of its main objectives. This is to educate society about the use of cannabis for medical purposes, as an integral part of the right to health.

Red Lotus lives it as a historical and transcendent failure. It recognizes this prerogative in favor of each of the patients who are part of this judicial action, and implicitly, for the rest of the population of Mexico. This situation is what empowers them to preventively advance the outcome of the same.

This prevents the delay in justice from having a negative impact on those who, from the beginning, are in the right, said Emmanuel Farias Camarero, a graduate in Drug Policy, Health and Human Rights from the Center for Economic Research and Teaching, author of the legal strategy used.

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(Featured image by Tim Mossholder via Pexels)

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

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