Mexico’s Supreme Court Says Cooking With Cannabis Is Allowed—With a Personal-Use Permit

Mexico’s Supreme Court has pushed the boundaries of legal adult-use cannabis a little further. This time, the issue was not cultivation, possession or transport. It was cooking.

The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, or SCJN, ruled that authorizations for recreational cannabis self-consumption may also cover the use of cannabis or THC in prepared or semi-prepared foods, as long as those foods are made strictly for the permit holder’s personal use.

The September 10 decision hinges on a distinction that sounds simple but carries real legal weight: making cannabis-infused food for yourself at home is not the same thing as manufacturing a regulated product for sale or distribution.

In other words, Mexico did not just legalize a commercial market for THC brownies, cookies or gummies. What the Court did recognize is that putting cannabis into certain foods can fall within the broader right to personal cannabis use that Mexican courts have been building out for more than a decade.

Cooking With Cannabis Can Count as “Preparation”

The case grew out of an authorization request filed with Mexico’s Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks, better known as Cofepris.

The health regulator ultimately granted permission for activities tied to personal cannabis use, but it imposed several restrictions. One of them barred the permit holder from using cannabis in prepared or semi-prepared foods.

The dispute eventually made its way back to the Supreme Court.

In a 7-2 ruling, the full Court found that adding cannabis or tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, to food intended solely for personal consumption amounts to an ordinary culinary activity. On its own, the Court said, that does not make the food a specially regulated health product.

As a result, the SCJN ordered Cofepris to issue an authorization that also allows for that kind of preparation.

That distinction matters because “preparing” was already among the activities that could be authorized for recreational self-consumption, alongside sowing, cultivating, harvesting, possessing and transporting cannabis. 

The unanswered question was how far that idea of preparation could go.

The Court has now drawn the line a little more clearly: cooking cannabis-infused food for yourself can fall within it.

No, Mexico Did Not Just Legalize Edibles

The ruling comes with very clear limits. Cannabis-infused foods made under this framework cannot be sold, distributed, given away, supplied to other people or offered to the public. The authorization applies only to the personal use of the person who holds it.

The ruling also does not erase existing health regulations for other cannabis-related products.

The Court upheld Cofepris’ restrictions on using cannabis in products subject to specific regulatory controls, including medicines, herbal remedies, medical devices, dietary supplements, cosmetics, vapes and similar products.

So the takeaway is not that anything containing cannabis is now fair game.

The ruling is much narrower: preparing cannabis-infused food at home for strictly personal consumption can be part of legally authorized recreational cannabis use.

Mexico’s Cannabis Rules Are Still Being Built in Court

The decision is the latest chapter in Mexico’s unusually court-driven cannabis policy.

In 2015, the SCJN ruled for the first time that the country’s absolute prohibition on recreational cannabis self-consumption was unconstitutional. After reaffirming that position in subsequent cases, the full Court in June 2021 invalidated, with general effect, provisions that prevented the Health Ministry from authorizing activities related to the recreational self-consumption of cannabis and THC. At the time, the Court made clear that adults could seek authorization for activities including sowing, cultivating, harvesting, preparing, possessing and transporting cannabis.

But it also set a limit that remains firmly in place five years later: those authorizations do not permit commercialization, supply or distribution.

Congress, meanwhile, has still not completed a comprehensive legal framework for adult-use cannabis.

That has left Mexico in a strange middle ground. The constitutional right to personal cannabis use has already been recognized, but the rules governing what that right actually looks like in practice are still being filled in piece by piece.

And for now, one of those pieces extends all the way to the kitchen.

Photo by Margo Amala en Unsplash

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