With 27 votes in favor, eight against and one abstention, the ruling was endorsed this afternoon in an extraordinary meeting and amidst reproaches from the opposition. Deputies of the National Action Party (PAN) accused that the debate was limited by not allowing individual votes and the discussion of reservations until the initiative reaches the Board of Directors of the Lower House.
They reject criminal sanctions
The majority of opposition legislators voted against establishing criminal penalties for those who purchase vapes or electronic cigarettes. They considered that this provision criminalizes users.
Instead, they proposed regulating the products or just prohibiting their marketing – because they do consider them harmful to health – but without prison sentences as punishment.
Ana Isabel González, deputy of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), said that the penalty opens the door to the black market and clandestine sales. He assured that this puts young people and adolescents, the main users of vaping devices, at greater risk.
However, the legislator of the ruling Morena party, Fernando Castro, assured that the reform does not sanction carrying and use, but rather seeks to protect health and control clandestine stores.
From the Citizen Movement (MC), Juan Ignacio Zavala contradicted him. He pointed out that the initiative considers prison sentences, even for those who purchase an electronic cigarette.
“This is one of the most punitive rulings that have passed here. That is why, in Movimiento Ciudadano we voted against this ruling that criminalizes,” he warned.
The representative of the same party, Amancay González, supported her colleague. Although he said he was in favor of prohibiting the sale of these products for containing toxic substances, he refused to endorse the sentences of what he called “the criminal policy against vaping.”
Currently, he assured, whoever sells crystal or cocaine can be punished with 6 years in prison, so the punishment for those who vape would be greater, with sentences of up to 8 years.
“If this is approved, Mexico will be the country where it will be most dangerous to buy a vape than trafficking drugs,” he noted.
