Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto approved a law in June calling on the Health Ministry to write rules for the medical use of marijuana. Initially, many politicians, including Jose Luis Oliveros Usabiaga, a member of the center-right National Action Party and youth committee chair in the lower chamber of Congress, opposed the legislation when it was being debated.
“My opposition, of course, was to addiction. It felt like giving a child a gun to play with,” Oliveros Usabiaga said.
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But the country’s Supreme Court later determined that the prohibition of the consumption or cultivation of marijuana violated fundamental human rights. Oliveros Usabiaga, who has since stepped down from office, now supports legalization, he said.
Peña Nieto eventually gave a speech at the United Nations lamenting the human toll of the country’s decadelong drug war against drug traffickers and pledging to push for legislation allowing the medical use and scientific research of marijuana.
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