UN fears imperfect decriminalization of cannabis in Mexico

Mexico is in danger of falling into an “imperfect decriminalization” of cannabis, warned Raúl Martín del Campo, member of the United Nations (UN) World Narcotics Control Board (INCB).

The specialist warned that the potential of a legal cannabis market for the mature consumption of cannabis should not be overestimated, because the danger is that the Mexican State will end up paying more in terms of pathologies, loss of years of a healthy life, and premature deaths, from which it will be able to collect taxes, in the same way as it has happened with alcohol and tobacco.

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Why awareness campaigns are very important

When informing that the INCB follows quite closely the legislative process that develops the Congress of the Alliance to regulate the use of cannabis, Raul Martin del Campo highlighted the value of all legislative changes with vigorous preventive campaigns to raise awareness among adolescents about the danger of substance use, in addition to the strengthening of detection programs and procedure, item in the distinction that all nations have a social debt and Mexico is not the one.

He pointed out that the INCB is in consensus that there has been no discrimination towards clients, which produces a stigma and a barrier for these people to get into a procedure, a chance of social reintegration and respect for their basic human rights.

“For this reason, we are in full agreement with the proposal of legislation that supports the non-discrimination of users and not criminals”, he said when he pronounced for the development of laws that ensure the beginning of proportionality, contemplated in the Conventions around the world, which seeks not to criminalize drug users because of their condition.

Substance use should be addressed from a public health approach, which gives users early detection measures, voluntary procedures, or even harm reduction programs if that is what they are still trying to find individuals, said Raul Martin del Campo, in an interview.

In relation to the authorization of a market for the production and commercialization of cannabis, the INCB expert recalled that Mexico is a signatory of the 1961 Exclusive Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which in its article 4° restricts the probability of production and commercialization of substances with exclusively medical and scientific objectives, and cannabis is preserved classified in schedule 1 of this Convention as a controlled drug.

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