 Hello, I'm Peter Sharuschi. I'm the editor of the Drug Reporter website and I'm sitting here at the Vienna International Center at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs with Sara Snap, the director of Instituto Ria, which is an advocacy organization based in Mexico City. So, Sara, last time we were speaking here, you were very enthusiastic. That was the time when the new government was elected and President Obrador just announced that he supports cannabis legalization and we were just after the Supreme Court decisionizing that that kind of lifted the ban on the use of cannabis and we still don't see the legalization is happening in Mexico, right? That's correct. So probably the last time we spoke was in March 2020 and we were in this very strong legislative process and with a lot of motivation and a lot of momentum. So during the pandemic, obviously that got slowed and kind of got stagnant and what happened was that the Senate approved an initiative, a bill with overwhelming majority in the Senate to regulate cannabis with a social justice focus and then they sent it to the Congress and the Congress asked for more time to be able to discuss the issue and so they did a bunch of reforms or a bunch of changes to that bill and they approved their own bill in March 2021 and so then they sent it back to the Senate and the Senate said, we don't like these changes you've made, we're a little bit offended that you would make so many changes, we're not going to approve it and so they didn't do anything and so then it just kind of stopped and the Supreme Court limit, the deadline came and went and they didn't do anything and so then the Supreme Court did what they needed to do constitutionally which was to omit a general declaration of inconstitutionality which is only the second time in the history of Mexico that this had happened which is essentially legislating from the bench and they changed the general health law to remove that you can get a permit or a sanitary authorization for personal use of cannabis only for medical or scientific use so they took out the exclusive medical scientific opening the door to as you say personal or adult use and that was the big change no that one could say happened so now if you're an adult who wants to have access to cannabis you go to the regulatory body you ask for permission they're still say no even though they should say yes from the beginning they say they don't have any internal guidelines on this but they would have to write the internal guidelines so they say we don't have them we say no to you you go to a judge you say they're not complying with the general declaration and you and the judge says you're right you take that you go to the cofepuris the regulatory body and then they give you your sanitary authorization so it's a very onerous bureaucratic process that we know less than 20% of the people who begin the process who turn in their papers less than 20% conclude the process and so we have 80% of people who are trying to legalize themselves to say it that way to protect themselves and because it's so bureaucratic and you need lawyers they're not able to finish that process is there a risk that the police will intervene in this anyhow like if you if you don't get the permission in time or I mean people are being stopped every day for simple possession of cannabis and if you don't have your permission then the most likely scenario is that they're going to extract money from you extort you say you need to pay us ecce's amount of money and if you don't have the money but it looks like you could have the money they say it's fine we'll take you to the cash machine to take out money and so it's a it's a thing that is fomenting daily corruption and it's putting people who use cannabis at risk because then you don't have a legal recourse and so while we don't think that you should need permission to be able to cultivate for personal use for home grow we think that it's a way to protect yourself if you do participate in any way in the illegal cannabis market because then if they find you with plans if they find you possessing you at least have some protection because otherwise we know that the police beat people up we know that if you're a woman sexual torture is more possible and so these are these are really disturbing no it's it's it exposes you to abuse by the authority and it continues to foment then this corruption and we believe that it's really important for us to be able to guarantee the human rights of people who use drugs so some advocates are saying that there are some powerful forces be behind president or bredors reluctance to support regulation on cannabis and some people say that it is because of the military's resistance what do you think about that yeah I think that there's there's two pieces that are that have not allowed us to move forward with legislation around a more integrated regulation and that really has to do with the military and their historic role in the illegal drug markets of all drugs and that maybe they don't see the benefits of regulating because they have certain interests in maintaining the status quo and I think that's a reality and we need to be able to articulate and speak to that and also to find what are the incentives to get the armed forces in the military to want to change that because they're an actor that's very important and militarization in Mexico has only been deepened under this president although his two big campaign promises the reason I voted for him and many other people was that he was going to demilitarize and take the military back to their quartels back to their places and that he was going to regulate cannabis neither of those things have happened so there's a big disappointment because we expected something different and instead we see the military on a daily basis they're all around us and it doesn't make you feel safer and so without a doubt I think it's a it's a role they're an actor that we need to engage with and have conversations with and then the other piece is the reality that our president is quite conservative personally and he's afraid of what would happen if more drugs were available to our young people he has installed and implemented a very fear-mongering campaign prevention campaign that is very stigmatizing that is not based in evidence and that is very disturbing for people who have any sort of relationship with people who use drugs and for people who use drugs it's horrible to see these campaigns and it's also not a camp it's not a campaign where we think this is actually going to prevent people from using drugs we should be spending the money that's being spent on that campaign to ensure quality treatment for all those who want it we should be promoting harm reduction initiatives and there are some at the local level but he and himself is a very conservative person and and that's a concern then on who would have influence over him to change his mind I don't think that there is anyone even institution or personally and so that's where then I think unfortunately I don't see that we're going to have large reforms in this in this administration and in 2024 there are presidential elections reelection is not allowed so we're kind of waiting and what we're seeing and what we're working on is then much more related with society and public opinion and people and the self-regulation that's happening we can speak about that the clubs that are popping up and much less towards the government because we don't see an opening and we don't see that they're willing to engage in a in a larger dialogue so you have kind of a social clubs in Mexico right can you explain how they work sure so so they're beginning to emerge this social club movement in the sense that because you can have a personal authorization or permit to be able to to cultivate cannabis for personal use people are getting together and they're saying if you don't have that permit we have lawyers who can do the bureaucracy who can carry out that process and we can have a shared space where we consume together will grow your cannabis so that we'll be providing it to you and we will provide this legal protection should anything happen and obviously the goal now as they begin to emerge and they're happening all over the country not just in Mexico City in fact more in other states we're seeing it because it's people who don't want to have to go to the illegal market and who want to have their own way of supplying their own consumption and so we're seeing different agreements between cannabis clubs and communities that cultivate so that they can buy their product from them and the goal now is how do we ensure quality how do we make sure that these clubs are sending possibly their their cannabis to be tested in laboratories so they can have a sense of of the analysis how do we make sure that the people who are working there are given the labor rights that they need to have and that they are also informed and trained so that they understand I mean I think it's important for everyone to know about the conventions and the international drug control system because that does affect the local policymaking but this is within this legal vacuum and this lack of of impetus on the part of the government that's where we're seeing this new sorts of organization more cooperative models emerging and I would hope that they are accessible to all and that they don't put prices that make it that mean that people who don't have resources won't be able to be part of these kind of social clubs that are popping up and this is part of the peace building and social justice means of let's make sure that as we move forward in these self-regulations that we have that in mind. And a final question we are in Vienna now at the International Center so how do you see the trends at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs here like how does it affect what's happening in Mexico? Well I think the policymaking that happens here is quite detached from the reality but we see Mexico on a whole as a country playing a progressive role in these debates they're pushing for language that talks about human rights that recognizes the harms of policies and also drug use possible harms and so we do see them playing that role but it's hard because everything's relative so it's in comparison to other countries that are very prohibitionist they can play that role along with now Columbia and some other Latin American European countries that are really pushing this these different ideas you know another thing that that Mexico was very involved in was the omnibus resolution in New York in October where for the first time instead of it being a consensus-based document it was voted on and it's a much more progressive document and that was a strategic move by the Embassy in New York to kind of change the way they had been doing policymaking so it'll be interesting to see how that's received in these spaces and I think that the trends at the CND are shifting I mean there are more countries that are taking stances that are a bit more progressive there are more countries within that have jurisdictions that are promoting other models we heard from Malta and their social club model so we're just continuing to see how some of those tides are shifting and obviously the big news here will be if Bolivia calls for a declassification of the coca leaf and a critical review from the World Health Organization so we're kind of waiting for that to to be a reality and see whether that could be one of our one of the work areas for the next couple of years and so I think the CND is changing and obviously for us from civil society it was just wonderful to after three years come together be able to talk catch up and and align the movement again thank you so much for the interview and good luck with your advocacy work in Mexico thank you Peter