Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, once a left-wing firebrand, received criticism at home over his July 8 meeting with Trump at the White House, where he was called to inaugurate the renegotiated \u201cNAFTA 2.0,\u201d which recently took effect.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Top CEOs from both countries were in attendance at the White House\u00a0dinner<\/a>, including Apple\u2019s Tim Cook and Mexican magnate Carlos Slim.<\/p>\n L\u00f3pez Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, heaped\u00a0effusive praise<\/a>\u00a0on Trump, even saying the U.S. president has \u201ctreated us [Mexicans] with kindness and respect.\u201d This seemed a peculiar thing to say of the man who has built a political career out of\u00a0demonizing Mexicans<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe forecasts failed,\u201d AMLO\u00a0told reporters<\/a>\u00a0after the meeting. \u201cWe didn\u2019t fight. We are friends, and we\u2019re going to keep being friends.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately for AMLO, the days leading up to their meeting saw eruptions of spectacular bloodshed across Mexico\u2014grisly evidence that there is no end in sight for the narco-violence that has engulfed the country for the past 15 years. And the day after the meet, U.S. border agents\u00a0shot a man to death<\/a>\u00a0at the Mexicali-Calexico crossing in California.\u00a0<\/p>\n Most disappointing for many Mexican activists who once placed high hopes in AMLO, the cannabis legalization ordered by the country\u2019s supreme court back in October 2018 has been delayed yet again. Many are looking hopefully to the new law as a first step toward ameliorating the violence and bringing at least one element of the underground economy into a legal, regulated market. But delays to its passage are starting to seem interminable.\u00a0<\/p>\n In its 2018\u00a0ruling<\/a>, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN<\/a>) gave Mexico\u2019s Congress 90 days to amend the Health Code to allow for legal personal use, possession and cultivation of cannabis.<\/p>\n AMLO gave his full support, but lawmakers deadlocked on what degree to allow a legal market, and whether it should be in the hands of the state or private sector. Since the 90 days ran out, the SCJN has given Congress repeated deadline extensions to pass the law.\u00a0<\/p>\n This February, the\u00a0deadline was extended<\/a>\u00a0to April 30, and lawmakers were ambitiously pledging to beat it. The bill, dubbed the\u00a0Law for the Regulation of Cannabis<\/a>, called for permitting individual possession of up to 28 grams and cultivation of up to 20 plants per household, depending on how many family members reside under the roof.<\/p>\n It also called for creation of a Mexican Institute of Cannabis under the\u00a0Governance Secretariat<\/a>\u00a0to oversee a legal market. In March, the bill did pass the key Senate committees on Justice and Health, and lawmakers appeared to finally be racing to the finish line.<\/p>\n And then COVID-19 happened.<\/p>\n Just as progress seemed imminent, Congress shut down in response to the pandemic. Days before the new deadline ran out, Congress\u00a0shook down the high court<\/a>\u00a0for yet another extension. And this one is far more flexible. Lawmakers now have until the end of the next scheduled legislative session\u2014a window from mid-September to mid-December. That means it will likely be at least two years after the SCJN imposed its 90-day deadline before the law is passed.<\/p>\n Compounding the frustration, a planned expansion of Mexico\u2019s medical marijuana program is\u00a0also stalled<\/a>. Lawmakers revised the Health Code to allow for medical use in June 2017. The law ordered the\u00a0Health Secretariat<\/a>\u00a0to issue regulations establishing norms for cannabis use by qualifying patients. But this deadline came and went without action.<\/p>\n Mexican patients have since been confined to use of CBD-only products imported from the United States, as illicit cannabis has long gone north from Mexico to the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n With the legalization bill on hold, the Health Secretariat recently\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that it is preparing to release the medical marijuana regulations.<\/p>\n If followed through in a timely manner, this could provide a limited legal market for herbaceous marijuana (high-THC cannabis flower) while full legalization is delayed.<\/p>\n If more evidence is needed that Mexico\u2019s endemic narco-violence is still as strong as ever, the proof was in the headlines during the days surrounding the AMLO-Trump meeting.<\/p>\n July 3 saw a\u00a0bloody shoot-out<\/a> just across the border from Texas, involving government troops and presumed gunmen from the Cartel of the Northeast, a splinter faction of Los Zetas. Mexican army soldiers said they came under fire from the gunmen in the border town of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, according to The Border Report. They returned fire, killing 12 gunmen.\u00a0<\/p>\n Two days prior, there was another\u00a0horrific massacre<\/a>\u00a0as gunmen killed 24 people after storming a drug rehabilitation facility in the city of Irapuato, in central Guanajuato state. It\u2019s unclear which faction was behind that attack, but rehab centers have unknowingly become a\u00a0favorite target<\/a>\u00a0of the warring narco-gangs.<\/p>\n Homicides in Mexico hit a new record last year and are trending higher still in 2020.<\/p>\n More Mexican commentators are growing suspicious of the left-populist AMLO\u2019s closeness with right-populist and Mexico-bashing Trump. Some even\u00a0went so far<\/a>\u00a0as to call the White House meeting an act of \u201cnational treason.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n AMLO\u00a0ostentatiously declared<\/a>\u00a0the drug war to be \u201cover\u201d after taking office in late 2018. In May 2019, he dropped out <\/a>of the US-led, anti-drug Merida Initiative\u2014but this was only after most of the military aid had already been delivered. <\/p>\n Now his critics say AMLO\u2019s new\u00a0National Guard<\/a>\u00a0force,\u00a0ostensibly created<\/a>\u00a0to combat the narco-violence, is being used as proxy force for Trump, intercepting migrants before they reach the US border.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was actually the conservative Mexican commentator Enrique Krauze who on July 5 wrote a harsh op-ed in the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>, ahead of the summit, entitled \u201cMexico\u2019s President is All In for Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n Krauze writes:<\/p>\n \u201cThere is only one power that Mr. L\u00f3pez Obrador\u2026recognizes and fears, and that is the only power greater than himself\u2014the United States\u2026 That\u2019s why when Mr. Trump threatened to abandon the North American Free Trade Agreement or to impose tariffs on Mexican products, he agreed to turn Mexico into Mr. Trump\u2019s wall. The new National Guard, which was supposed to prevent and combat this country\u2019s unspeakable drug violence, has instead been deployed on our southern border turn away Central American migrants and, on the northern border, to keep them penned up in subhuman conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The National Guard is also involved in cannabis enforcement. On July 9, the force\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0the decommissioning of 66 tons of illicit cannabis in a series of operations across the country, with one of the biggest hauls in the state of Sonora.<\/p>\n Cannabis legalization will likely be only a small step back from the brink of social cataclysm in Mexico. But with even that first step stalled, the trajectory is deeper into crisis.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, do you think Mexico will legalize cannabis?<\/p>\n The post Mexico\u2019s Cannabis Legalization Languishes as Narco-Wars Escalate<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, once a left-wing firebrand, received criticism at home over his July 8 meeting with Trump at the White House, where he was called to inaugurate the renegotiated \u201cNAFTA 2.0,\u201d which recently took effect.\u00a0 Top CEOs from both countries were in attendance at the WhiteContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7517,50,119,265,7520],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43586,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43585\/revisions\/43586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Kicking Legalization Down the Road Thanks to COVID\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Nightmarish Violence Unabated<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Meet the New Boss?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Mexico\u2019s Cannabis Legalization Languishes as Narco-Wars Escalate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"