Mexico: Market and regulatory data analysis of the cannabis sector

3rd June 2024: Mexico: Claudia Sheinbaum appears to have been voted as Mexico’s next president, though results are not yet final, press reports. Sheinbaum is a member of the left-wing Morena party – the same as current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador – and is the former mayor of Mexico City. She has not spoken much of her views on cannabis, though she spoke favourably of a 2021 decision by the Supreme Court of Justice that found the country's cannabis prohibition unconstitutional.
1st February 2024: Mexico: The Federal Commission for the Protection against Health Risks (Cofepris) has denied that it granted a permit to farmers who claim to have been granted an amparo (judicial order) allowing them to cultivate industrial hemp in the state of Oaxaca, press reports. Despite media reports and statements by local officials to the contrary, Cofepris says that it has not received notice of any judicial order from the case and therefore has not issued a permit. The cultivation of hemp in Oaxaca has been reported extensively in the media as the first legal cultivation of its kind.
8th January 2024: Mexico: Efforts to pass legislation to regulate medical and recreational cannabis are apparently renewed after legislation has repeatedly stalled. The president of the Senate Board of Directors, Ana Lilia Rivera, stated that cannabis regulation will be addressed in the next legislative session, press reports. Senator and president of the Justice Commission Olga Sánchez Cordero has also urged action on cannabis regulation in the next Senate session. Legislative efforts have been stymied recently due to lack of support for cannabis regulation by the administration of president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, but his term will finish at the end of September.
26th July 2023: Mexico: The Federal Commission for the Protection against Public Health Risks (Cofepris) has seized 1,811 products from a number of stores in the Paradise chain in Mexico City, including CBD, hemp seeds, and cannabis extracts, for lacking sufficient safety evidence. Cofepris said some products displayed a false Cofepris registration code, violating regulations.
14th April 2023: Mexico: The Federal Commission for the Protection against Public Health Risks (Cofepris) has stated that legal action will be taken to revoke the 63 licences to distribute cannabis-based products that were irregularly issued in 2018 to 11 companies linked to the family of the former president Vicente Fox, press reports. Bertha Alcalde Luján, commissioner at Cofepris, specified that the former president works, according to public data, as a director and member of the Executive Council of Khiron, whose subsidiary Kuida Life received the licences. Alcalde Luján explained that on 30th October 2018, illegal cannabis guidelines were issued, which were not published in the Official Gazette of the Federation nor submitted for consideration by the National Commission for Regulatory Improvement (Conamer), and that the authorisations were granted at a remarkable speed of five days.
12th April 2023: Mexico: President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said 63 licences to distribute cannabis-based products that were issued by the Federal Commission for the Protection against Public Health Risks (Cofepris) to companies linked to the family of former president Vicente Fox are under investigation, press reports. López Obrador claims the licences were issued just five days before the end of the previous administration. Fox has denied any wrongdoing.
13th March 2023: Mexico: The Federal Commission for Protection Against Public Health Risks (Cofepris) has filed a complaint and disagreement with a court seeking to reverse a court order that required it to issue an injunction (amparo) to allow Xebra Brands to cultivate, produce, and commercialise hemp in Mexico. Cofepris said it views the court order as a "serious risk to health". "The health authority emphasizes that it complied with its obligations as a public institution, abiding by judicial provisions in the face of threats of fines and dismissal of public servants, but that it does not have enough information to determine that this product is safe for the purposes that the multinational company intends to use it," Cofepris said.
3rd March 2023: Mexico: The Mexican Cannabis Confederation for Medical Use (Concamed), a group of doctors, patients, government officials and activists who advocate for medical cannabis access, has announced an initiative to petition for the largest collective injunction (called “amparos”) to allow individual patients access to medical cannabis, press reports. Since 2014, approximately 6,000 patients have been granted access to medical cannabis via amparos. Although regulations for medical cannabis were issued in January 2021, those have yet to be implemented due to lack of political will.
6th February 2023: Mexico: Senator Eva Eugenia Galaz Caletti has introduced a proposal in the Senate to regulate hemp. The proposal would allow hemp with less than 0.1% THC, but further details are scarce as the full proposal has not yet been published. The Supreme Court has held that prohibiting hemp is unconstitutional, but until legislation is passed, the only way to legally produce hemp is through petitioning the courts for an injunction (amparo).
27th January 2023: Mexico: The congress for the state of Baja California approved an initiative to decriminalise cannabis for medical purposes, press reports. The measure is still dependent on the federal government implementing its own medical cannabis programme. Despite the federal Supreme Court ruling that failing to do so violates the constitution and the federal government issuing regulations for medical cannabis, the federal government has stalled in implementing its medical cannabis programme.
23rd January 2023: Mexico: The president of the Board of Directors of the Senate, Alejandro Armenta, has told media that cannabis and hemp reform would be addressed in the upcoming legislative session that begins on 1st February. The Supreme Court of Mexico has been calling on Congress to legalise and regulate cannabis for years, repeatedly ruling that the country’s current cannabis laws are unconstitutional, but legislative efforts have failed year after year.
29th November 2022: Mexico: A court in Sonora has granted a citizen’s petition and ordered the Federal Commission for the Protection against Public Health Risks (Cofepris) to issue a permit to consume and cultivate recreational cannabis for personal use, press reports. No commercial activity is allowed under the order (called an amparo). While the regulatory landscape for cannabis in Mexico is very unsettled, the courts continue to grant amparos to companies and individuals for cannabis-related activities.

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