The protest was also a party, with many in costume and many smoking marijuana in plain view of police doing crowd control.
Thousands of people toked up outside the Senate in Mexico City’s historic center on Wednesday to celebrate World Cannabis Day until around 9 p.m.
Marijuana smokers rolled joints, drank alcohol and bought drugs in open view on Reforma Avenue. A disc jockey and bands performed, and organizers held a Lucha Libre match in a ring set up on the avenue.
Some people had non-life threatening injuries after falling during a stampede, while other people were pushed into metal barriers. There was also some commotion when some drug sellers were expelled by the organizers.
Police didn’t intervene to prevent the consumption of drugs but helped keep traffic flowing along Reforma and Insurgentes avenues. Four grams of marijuana were being sold for 100 pesos (US $5).
The crowd chanted “There’s a gap in the law. Rights for stoners! … Legal weed raises morale,” and “Earth to sow it, freedom to smoke it,” as floods of people took over lanes of Reforma.
One of the event’s organizers addressed the crowd at 4:20 p.m, in reference to 420, a symbolic identifying number used in the pro-marijuana community. “We are no longer alone. Peasants, communal landowners, scientists, doctors … cannabis-smoking women and especially today the responsible stoners who are here in peace,” he said.
The organizer added that it was unlikely that there would be any changes in legislation before September.
The Senate has yet to legalize the possession of up to 28 grams of marijuana for personal use and the cultivation of up to six plants in one’s home, despite the motion passing the Chamber of Deputies in March 2021. At his regular morning news conference on March 31, President López Obrador said that there were some plans for wider legalization of “nondestructive drugs with light effects, as is the case with marijuana.”
Former president Vicente Fox is one person who is betting on marijuana legalization: he is the co-owner of a chain of cannabis stores that plan to open 130 outlets in 2022.
With reports from El Universal
