Will regulating cannabis bring peace to Mexico?

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After the Mexican Cannabis and Hemp Council last May highlighted various benefits of legalizing marijuana, the key question now is whether regulating cannabis will bring peace to the country.

According to figures from the aforementioned body, regulating cannabis represents profits for 6 billion dollars a year for Mexico, a figure that would allow it to deal with the current economic recession.

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

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

According to Menchaca, the regulation of cannabis will allow establishing conditions to benefit the field. These guidelines will be without siege by organized crime and under State control to pacify the country and to respect the rights of consumers.

Despite this, the official stated that what is essential is state control of cannabis production. This is with the objective of generating income, having control over the safety of production, and regulating the quality of the plant.

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

Peasants farmers and cannabis

Likewise, Menchaca alleged that the farmers will benefit from the development of the Mexican cannabis industry. “The farmers will have a huge source of legal income, which will generate taxes in a market of billions of dollars, with the control, supervision, and oversight 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 peasants against organized crime 

This is due to the fact that during the last 100 years, peasants faced a choice: planting cannabis out of necessity or under threat from drug traffickers.

Legislate and regulate cannabis

Lawmakers noted that cannabis had a negative impact on the lives of farmers. Such an impact is visible in the form of dispossession, forced displacement and subordination by force to cultivate or rent their lands. All this in the framework that the productive spaces of the field for the cultivation of cannabis are led by organized crime. These criminals organize the production, distribution, and marketing of cannabis.

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

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

Source: senado.gob , diariojuridico.com, milenio.com, nacioncannabis.com

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