Edward Murillo
Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, July 18, 2022, p. eleven
The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) published the jurisprudence that maintains the prohibition to industrially produce marijuana for commercial purposes and purposes other than medical. However, he warned that this measure may affect free trade and freedom of work.
The criteria issued by the highest court indicate that these contradictions subsist due to the lack of specific rules in the General Health Law.
These are four jurisprudence approved in a private session of the first room of the constitutional court on July 6, after the resolutions issued on cases of companies that requested the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) permits to cultivate and commercially exploit varieties of cannabis.
The SCJN points out that, with the current wording of said legislation, maintaining this prohibition is possible, since it has legal support.
The first chamber of the Court determines that the aforementioned regulatory system that prohibits the planting, cultivation and harvesting of cannabis for the production of its derivatives, in concentrations of one percent or less of tetrahydrocannabinol, with broad industrial uses and purposes other than medical and scientists established by the General Health Law and the Federal Penal Code, pursues a constitutionally valid purpose, because it seeks the health of people and seeks the protection of the social order, says jurisprudence 1A/J.98/2022.
Since June of last year, the SCJN approved the general declaration of unconstitutionality 1/2018 that eliminated the absolute prohibition for the recreational consumption of weed; however, it pointed out that to be effective it was necessary to modify the law in order to regulate the planting, cultivation, possession and transportation of this drug, which to date has not occurred.
Therefore, it is noted that this lack in the General Health Law “affects, prima faciein the content of the fundamental right to free trade”, the SCJN points out in another of its theses, 1A/J.99/2022.
