Mexico’s top court to weigh limited marijuana legalization

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Mexico’s Supreme Court will consider a case next week that may help marijuana legalization efforts in the country.

Judge Arturo Zaldivar, one of five Mexican Supreme Court Justices, recently made a recommendation to allow personal cultivation and use of marijuana. The court will take up the issue at a hearing on Oct. 28.

Optimism should be tempered, however, as the business impact would be minimal, and a pro-legalization ruling is no guarantee.

The move would only apply to the plaintiffs in the case, the Mexican Society for Tolerant and Responsible Personal Use. Members of the group would only be able to grow and use cannabis themselves.

“But they would not be able to engage in any commercial transaction whatsoever,” Mexico observer Alejandro Hope noted in a piece that ran in the El Daily Post.

Still, it would loosen cannabis laws in Mexico, possibly paving the way for broader marijuana legalization down the road.

The case goes back to 2013, when the legalization society sought an injunction asking the Federal Commission for the Protection Against Sanitary Risk to allow for the personal cultivation and consumption of cannabis.

Several countries in recent months have moved closer to legalized marijuana, including Australia, Canada and Croatia this month alone.