Mexico countries/mx.yaml
Without an authorization, the domestic immediate-personal-consumption rule is that up to 5 g is not prosecuted, and anything over 5 g can still be prosecuted.[@dgi] In 2021 the Supreme Court removed the legal obstacle to adult personal use.[@dgi,tms] COFEPRIS may authorize a named adult to acquire seed, sow, grow, harvest, prepare, possess and transport cannabis for that person's own recreational use.[@cofepris26] The declaration sets no universal gram limit for those authorizations, and it excludes import, trade, supply and distribution.[@cofepris26,cms] The Supreme Court has twice protected individuals held with more than 5 g, in May 2022 and February 2026, telling judges to weigh whether the cannabis was for personal use.[@zeta22,imp26] In 2026 it fell one vote short of removing the 5 g rule for everyone.[@dgi,cofepris26,cms,tms,zeta22,imp26] [The 2021 declaration ended the ban on personal use.](/history/mexico-supreme-court-2021/) [Judges must weigh personal use over 5 g since 2022.](/history/mexico-five-gram-ruling-2022/) [The court fell one vote short in 2026.](/history/mexico-five-gram-vote-fails-2026/) Unauthorised import or export is a separate offence under article 194(II), carrying ten to … cluding temporary entry or transit; the domestic 5 g rule does not cover it.[@border_code]
Growing for one's own recreational use requires a COFEPRIS authorization issued to a named adult.[@cofepris26] The 2021 declaration covers sowing, cultivation and harvest for that person, and it leaves the rules for acquiring seed to COFEPRIS.[@dgi] It sets no nationwide plant count. Growing without an authorization is a crime, and obtaining legal seeds remains a separate problem.[@dgi] [The 2021 declaration ended the ban on personal use.](/history/mexico-supreme-court-2021/)
Small-scale users are often released, but extortion and arbitrary detention over possession are widely reported.[@tms] Possession above the thresholds and any supply are federal crimes with prison.[@cms] [Judges must weigh personal use over 5 g since 2022.](/history/mexico-five-gram-ruling-2022/)
Permits are strictly personal and do not allow supplying anyone else.[@rmn] Any transfer remains an offence.[@cms]
Permit holders may consume in private, not in front of minors or non-consenting people, and not in public.[@rmn] Police treatment of public use varies widely by city.[@tms]
There are no legal recreational sales or licensed dispensaries.[@cms] A narrow medical route permits prescribed cannabis medicines, including personal imports with prior COFEPRIS approval.[@dof] Unlicensed members-only shops and clubs operate through local tolerance, injunctions or purported gifts, but they are not a lawful retail market.[@yuc] [Medical use was regulated in 2021.](/history/mexico-medical-regulation-2021/)
Medical and industrial licences exist on paper since 2021 regulations; adult-use commercial production is not permitted.[@dof,cms,giq]
Low-THC and CBD products are sold; a handful of medical products are registered. No legal THC retail products. The health regulator has contested the CBD trade: in July 2023 it seized 1,811 products from a national shop chain and said such sales fell outside health rules.
cms, zeta23
Medical cannabis was legalised in 2017 and regulations were issued in 2021, allowing prescription and import of approved products.[@cms] Availability is limited, with a handful of registered products; low-THC and CBD products are sold, though the regulator seized 1,811 CBD items from a national chain in July 2023 as outside health rules.[@cms,zeta23] [Medical use was legalised in 2017.](/history/mexico-medical-2017/) [Medical use was regulated in 2021.](/history/mexico-medical-regulation-2021/)
cms, zeta23
After the Supreme Court's 2021 ruling an adult can apply to the health regulator COFEPRIS for a personal-use permit, which covers acquiring seed, sowing, growing and harvesting.[@tele] The regulator was left to define how seed may be acquired, and the permit does not allow importing, selling or distributing, so there is no legal seed trade.[@tele,yuc] The health regulator still treats cannabis seeds as narcotics under the health law.[@tele] In practice, street stands on some major avenues sell plants and seeds openly.[@yuc]
tele, zeta23, yuc
No law provides for cannabis clubs, and Congress has never passed the regulation the Supreme Court called for, so clubs work in a grey zone across the country.[@yuc] They lean on the constitutional freedom of association and on members' personal permits or court injunctions, which one drug-policy researcher calls a semi-legal backing that does not cover any sale.[@ceo19] The first, Club Xochipilli, opened in Mexico City in December 2015 after the court's first ruling.[@yuc] Because clubs are private, barely advertise and are unregistered, nobody can count them, but specialists describe a boom, with[@yuc,mil25] chains now present in Mexico City, the State of Mexico, Baja California and Quintana Roo, and clubs in Guadalajara.[@mil25] Typically a member registers with official ID and pays a daily, monthly or yearly fee; can … 'donation' converted into points, and some clubs ask for an injunction or a prescription.[@mil25,ceo19] Authorities mostly tolerate them, which researchers call selective inaction; clubs are short-lived, supply often comes from the illegal market, and raids, though reported as rare, still happen.[@yuc,mil25]
Mexico's statistics office does not separate cannabis from other drugs. At the end of 2023 … ling, a category that takes in many cases of simple possession, and 7,021 for trafficking.[@uno25] Rates in state prisons were highest in Durango, Sonora and Chihuahua.[@uno25]
The rule shown here applies to federal highways and bridges; state and municipal traffic rules require separate checks.[@traffic2012] Federal regulation article 93, replaced by the decree published on 13 August 2026 and effective the following day, prohibits[@traffic2026] driving in a state of psychophysical alteration or ingestion of alcohol, narcotic or psychotropic substances, including medicines affecting driving.[@traffic2026] A prescription does not exempt the driver.[@traffic2026] The provisionamended article sets a fine of fifty to fifty-five daily quota units; these units are not a fixed peso amount.[@traffic2026] The National Guard refers the driver to the competent authority and informs the licence issuer of the infringement.[@traffic2026] Drivers must submit to drug-detection tests requested by authorised transport medical personnel or National Guard personnel conducting the tests.[@traffic2026] The verified federal text does not specify a numerical THC allowance or an automatic nationwide cannabis-specific licence-ban duration.[@traffic2026] This ingestion-based wording must not be described as requiring proof of impaired control alone, or as a verified laboratory rule penalising any trace of THC.[@traffic2026]
Figures reported by the government to the UN drugs office record 71,538 kg of herbal cannabis seized in 2024, against 72,873 kg in 2023.[@unodc_szr] The UN publishes them as kilogram equivalents, and countries count seizures differently, so the figures are not comparable across borders.[@unodc_szr]
Cannabis Freedom Index — Marijuana (atlas) Cannabis Freedom Index — Mota (atlas) Cannabis Freedom Index — Sinsemilla (atlas) Cannabis Freedom Index — La Santa Rosa (atlas) Cannabis Freedom Index — Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra (atlas) 19 unchanged
MXN
upto 5 g · treatment tolerated · term Possession for immediate personal use · note Not prosecuted; judges must weigh personal use even above 5 g, over 5 g · treatment criminal · term Possession beyond personal use · note Prosecutable; authorisation or personal-use finding required
label Growing with a COFEPRIS personal-use authorization · treatment legal · term Authorized personal cultivation · note Named adult; sowing, cultivation and harvest for own use; no plant count set, label Growing without an authorization · treatment criminal · term Unlawful cultivation · note A crime; legal seed acquisition remains unresolved
Partly lawful, with no market. Adults may seek a COFEPRIS authorization to grow and consume for personal use, and up to 5 g is not prosecuted.[@cofepris26,dgi] There are no legal recreational sales or licensed dispensaries; unlicensed shops and clubs operate through tolerance, injunctions or purported gifts.[@cms,yuc] [The 2021 declaration ended the ban on personal use.](/history/mexico-supreme-court-2021/)
cofepris26, dgi, cms, yuc
strict
Industrial hemp licences exist on paper under the 2021 regulations, but with no commercial growing reported; adult-use production stays banned.[@dof,giq]
dof, giq
Mexico gave the world the words. [Marijuana](/culture/language/marijuana/) is Mexican Spanish, and in the 1930s American law took it up precisely because it sounded foreign.[@marijuana] [Mota](/culture/language/mota/), Mexican and Central American slang since the nineteenth century, and [sinsemilla](/culture/language/sinsemilla/), the seedless technique that came north in the 1970s, travelled the same route.[@mota,sinsemilla] At home the plant could be sacred: in Otomí communities [La Santa Rosa](/culture/traditions/la-santa-rosa/) is kept on an altar, shared in ceremony and called the Lady-Flower.[@santa] And Mexican science talked back early — in 1938 psychiatrist [Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra](/culture/people/leopoldo-salazar-viniegra/) told the Academy of Medicine that the madness blamed on marijuana was a myth, and his treatment-not-punishment regulation became law for five months in 1940.[@salazar] [Salazar called the marijuana madness a myth in 1938.](/history/mexico-salazar-marijuana-myth-1938/) [Dispensaries opened under the 1940 regulation.](/history/mexico-brief-legalisation-1940/) [The Senate sit-in garden lasted until 2023.](/history/mexico-planton-420-ends-2023/)
marijuana, mota, sinsemilla, santa, salazar