On May 11, the First Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) will vote on a project by Minister Juan Luis González Alcántara Carrancá that seeks to declare valid that the authorities carry out —as they have done up to now— arrests for possession of cannabis, and that it be a judge who determines whether or not the possession is for personal consumption and whether the person should go to jail.
The project stems from an injunction promoted by the organization México Unidos Contra la Delincuencia (MUCD) to determine whether or not the simple possession of cannabis should continue to be considered a crime, by virtue of the fact that the Supreme Court itself determined that the prohibition of cannabis is unconstitutional. and recognized that its non-commercial consumption is protected by the free development of the personality.
Said organization argued that this crime creates a problem because it makes it impossible to exercise a recognized right, “because there is no consumption without possession, and because it aggravates insecurity by distracting the authority from the prosecution of true crimes. In addition, its existence allows the authority to use the threat of jail to extort users”.
Minister Juan Luis González Alcántara’s project validates the crime of simple possession of cannabis, which, in the opinion of the MUCD, violates the right to free development of the personality and does not serve to protect public health, since by definition personal consumption requires possession and does not imply the affectation of the health of other people.
If the majority vote of the ministers of the First Chamber wins, users may continue to be detained by the police and brought before the Public Prosecutor’s Office so that it can determine whether or not the amount of cannabis they possess is for personal consumption, if they are linked to the process and receive preventive detention.
“If the project is approved, the Court would be falling into an inconsistency that will have clear consequences for people. As long as this crime exists, the contradiction of being able to consume without being able to have will continue and the threat for users of being detained, extorted and even unjustly imprisoned will be perpetuated depending on whether the authority determines that they are consumers or not,” said México Unido Contra la Delinquency.
“It is untenable that seven years after the first sentence that recognized the right of people to consume cannabis (SMART protection), the Supreme Court doubts whether the simple possession of cannabis should be a crime,” he added.