Yahoo – AFP,
Yemeli Ortega, 5 Nov 2015
A
demostrator smokes marijuana during a rally in front of the Supreme Court
of
Justice in Mexico City, on November 4, 2015 (AFP Photo/Alfredo Estrella)
|
Mexico City
(AFP) - Mexico's Supreme Court opened the door to recreational use of marijuana
in a landmark ruling, giving a group of activists permission to grow and smoke
their own pot.
Contributing
to a growing drug policy debate in Latin America, the justices on Wednesday
voted 4-1 in favor of the four members of the Mexican Society for Responsible
and Tolerant Personal Use, whose Spanish acronym spells "SMART."
Justice
Arturo Zaldivar, who backed the group's effort, said the country's marijuana
prohibition is an "extreme" and "disproportionate" measure.
A woman
smokes marijuana during a rally
in front of the Supreme Court of Justice in
Mexico City on November 4, 2015 (AFP
Photo/Alfredo Estrella)
|
Outside the
court in the capital's historic center, dozens of people celebrated the ruling
by smoking joints and dancing to reggae music.
"We
won!" exclaimed Francisco Torres Landa, a 50-year-old lawyer and SMART
member, pumping his fist in the air inside the chamber.
His group
hopes the ruling will force Congress to consider legalizing marijuana, a move
they say would strip drug cartels of a key source of cash and therefore reduce
the country's runaway violence.
President
Enrique Pena Nieto, who has opposed the legalization of pot, said his
government "respects and accepts" the ruling.
But he told
reporters that the decision is limited in scope to the four members of SMART
and that it does not mean a broader legalization of marijuana.
The ruling,
however, "opens a broad debate" on how to regulate the use of
marijuana and "inhibit its consumption," he said.
Health
Minister Mercedes Juan Lopez said her ministry will now have to draft new
regulations to ensure that the health of non-pot smokers and children is
protected.
The
government will also have to look at terms for importing seeds.
A man
smokes marijuana during a rally
in front of the Supreme Court of Justice
in
Mexico City on November 4, 2015
(AFP Photo/Alfredo Estrella)
|
The SMART
members themselves -- two lawyers, an accountant and a social activist -- say
they do not even plan to grow and smoke pot.
Rather, the
activists want to force the government and lawmakers to rethink the
controversial war on drugs.
"This
is not for the four of us," SMART member Torres Landa told AFP, saying the
goal was to "break" the government's marijuana prohibition.
Pena Nieto,
who took office in December 2012, has pressed on with his predecessor's
controversial strategy of using troops to go after cartels.
The ruling,
Pena Nieto said, "does not imply in any way the elimination of the policy
that the government has maintained."
Legalization
has caught on in other parts of Latin America.
Uruguay has
created a regulated market for pot, while Chile's Congress is debating a law to
legalize its recreational and medical use.
In the
United States -- the biggest consumer of drugs from Mexico -- 23 US states and
the capital Washington, D.C. now allow medical marijuana, and four others plus
the US capital have legalized pot for recreational use.
People
demonstrate for and against the decriminalization of marijuana in front
of the
Supreme Court of Justice in Mexico City on November 4, 2015 (AFP
Photo/Alfredo Estrella)
|
Mexico
'not ready for this'
The judge
who voted against, Jorge Mario Pardo, argued that the ruling could not work
because it does not address the ban against obtaining the seeds to grow
marijuana.
"Mexico
has many problems to resolve. It's not ready for this," said Consuelo
Mendoza, president of the National Union of Parents, who took part in an
anti-marijuana protest outside the court.
SMART took
its case to the courts in 2013 after the government's health regulator,
Cofepris, denied its request for permission to produce and consume its own
marijuana for recreational use.
While
Mexico's government has opposed the legalization of drugs, health authorities
granted an exception last month for an eight-year-old girl suffering from
severe epilepsy.
The girl,
Grace, took her first treatment of a cannabis-based oil last month, which her
parents hope will reduce the 400 epileptic fits she endures each day.
Mexican judges say it’s ok to smoke weed for fun https://t.co/43XMbzpZeF #INFOGRAPHIC shows global prevalence @AFP pic.twitter.com/hNw4LNrVty
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) November 5, 2015
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