Regulatory Framework · 2.4 Substance Market Regulations

Partial compliance.

Mexico has a relevant legal and regulatory basis for controlled cannabis cultivation. The General Health Law subjects acts related to cannabis, THC, narcotics, and psychotropic substances to sanitary control and federal authorization, providing a legal foundation for cultivation under regulated conditions.

The central source for the indicator is the 2021 Regulation on the production, research, and medical use of cannabis and its pharmacological derivatives. This regulation develops a specific framework for sowing and cultivation permits for medical, pharmacological, and research purposes. It includes relevant operational elements such as confined permitted sites, site identification, state-level location, seed control, harvesting, security measures, traceability, and permit registration. Mexico therefore does not lack a formal framework: a normative architecture for controlled cultivation exists.

However, the indicator does not reach full compliance because the available evidence does not demonstrate operational, transparent, and supervised functioning of the system. No consolidated public source was located from COFEPRIS, SENASICA, SADER, or SNICS allowing verification of active licenses or authorizations, permit holders, authorized sites, quotas, volumes, inspections, sanctions, public traceability, or administrative supervision outcomes. This absence does not negate the existence of the legal framework, but it prevents confirmation of effective implementation.

Supreme Court General Declaration of Unconstitutionality 1/2018 adds a separate dimension of authorized personal cultivation of marijuana, recognizing that recreational self-consumption may include seed acquisition, sowing, cultivation, harvesting, preparation, possession, and transport for personal use. Nevertheless, its scope is sector-limited and personal: it does not create commercial licenses, productive sites, commercial quotas, or authorization for importation, commerce, supply, or distribution.

At the territorial level, Mexico City, Puebla, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and the complementary states remain probatory gaps regarding active licenses, sowing permits, authorized sites, supervision, or traceability of controlled cultivation. Consequently, Mexico demonstrates a formal permit regime for controlled medical cultivation and authorized personal cultivation, but not a nationally verifiable system of active licenses, enforcement, and effective operation.