In an attempt to reactivate tourism in Baja California Sur after the precipitous drop this year due to the coronavirus, state tourism officials in La Paz and Los Cabos have spearheaded an initiative to give tourism police a better command of English.
The pandemic and its resulting drop in tourism numbers prompted the state to rethink what it needed to do to be competitive in the hospitality sector, the Tourism Minister Luis Humberto Araiza López said.
His department is working with the Baja California Sur Autonomous University to offer free professional development classes in English to the two cities’ tourism police force members.
One way to get tourists back is by offering more and better services to the state’s biggest group of tourists — Americans, he said.
The initiative is being partly paid for the U.S. Consulate General in Tijuana, which supported the cost of the classes’ teaching materials and also teacher training, in recognition that the state is one of the biggest travel destinations for U.S. citizens and in recognition of the importance of Mexican law enforcement authorities having a good command of the English language.
Consul General Sue Saarnio and Araiza met on November 17 to discuss what Baja California Sur is doing to implement health protocols to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Fires burn at municipal headquarters in Fresnillo.
Protesters in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, demanding justice in the murder of a 12-year-old girl set fire to the city’s municipal palace Sunday.
The victim, identified only as Sofia, disappeared from her home on November 11. Her body, found Sunday, showed signs of torture and sexual assault.
Demonstrators also called upon Fresnillo Mayor Saúl Monreal to do something about increased violence in the municipality. In an unrelated case, the bodies of five men were found on October 31 in a home in the city. Authorities said they had been tortured with sharp objects.
When Monreal did not appear to address the protesters Sunday, they entered the municipal palace by force and set it on fire, destroying doors and windows. State anti-riot police and the National Guard were called to regain control of the situation.
According to local media accounts, Sofia was kidnapped after being tricked to leave her home. She reportedly received a call at home from a man posing as her teacher who made an appointment with her to go over homework.
State Public Security Minister Arturo López said Sunday that city law enforcement officials were working with the state to obtain justice for the girl.
“I promise we are working in conjunction with the state Attorney General’s Office to find those responsible,” he said.
Nevertheless, protests continued Monday.
In a separate incident, a group of people spray-painted graffiti messages containing the Gulf Cartel’s initials outside Mayor Monreal’s home.
Covid resilience map shows countries with the lowest ranking in orange and the best in dark blue.
Mexico is the worst country to be in during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an analysis conducted by the Bloomberg news agency.
Using 10 different indicators including growth in coronavirus cases, Covid-19 mortality, testing capacity and the vaccine supply agreements governments have reached, Bloomberg graded 53 countries with economies larger than US $200 billion to determine where the virus has been handled most effectively with the least amount of disruption to business and society.
Mexico ranked 53rd with a “Covid resilience” score of just 37.6 out of 100.
Among the other indicators Bloomberg considered were the capacity of the health system in each of the 53 countries, the impact of coronavirus restrictions on the economy and citizens’ freedom of movement.
Mexico was graded particularly poorly for its Covid-19 fatality rate over the past month (8.6 deaths per 100 cases, according to Bloomberg), positivity rate (62.3%) and “lockdown severity” (the federal government never enforced a strict lockdown).
New Zealand, where the government has largely achieved the elimination of the coronavirus, came out on top with a “Covid resilience” score of 85.4. Japan and Taiwan ranked second and third, respectively.
The “Covid resilience” score for Mexico – where confirmed coronavirus cases and Covid-19 deaths recently passed 1 million and 100,000, respectively – was 3.5 points lower than that of Argentina, which ranked second last, and four points below that of Peru, which ranked third last.
Despite having the highest case tally and death toll in the world, the United States ranked 35 places above Mexico in 18th spot with a score of 66.5. Mexico’s other North American trade partner, Canada, ranked 13th with a score of 73.2.
In a brief written explanation of why Mexico ranked last, Bloomberg said “the nation’s latest available positive test rate is a whopping 62%, suggesting undetected infection is widespread.”
It also noted that “Mexican officials have acknowledged that the country’s death toll is likely significantly higher than official data, due to limited testing.”
Countries with the highest number of coronavirus cases.
In addition, Bloomberg said that President López Obrador, like Donald Trump of the United States and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, has “repeatedly downplayed the coronavirus threat.”
The news agency also noted that Latin America is the most urbanized region in the world and that social distancing is difficult for many people because they live in crowded conditions. “The high proportion of people who rely on informal work and daily wages means that few are willing to stay home,” it added.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), most Latin American countries won’t see economic growth return to pre-pandemic levels until 2023 and per-capita income won’t recover until 2025.
Among the 53 countries assessed by Bloomberg, the IMF forecasts that Mexico will see the 10th biggest economic downturn in 2020 with a 9% recession predicted.
Bloomberg said its rankings are not indicative of “a final verdict” on the impact of the coronavirus and countries’ response to it, acknowledging that they could never be due to “imperfections in virus data and the fast pace of this crisis, which has seen subsequent waves confound places that handled things well the first time around.”
It said that its scores and rankings “will change as countries switch up their strategies, the weather shifts and the race intensifies for a viable inoculation.”
“The gap that has opened up between those economies at the top and those at the bottom is likely to endure,”Bloomberg said, adding that there will potentially be “lasting consequences in the post-Covid world.”
Geraldine Brooks and Lawrence Wright are among the guest writers at the annual conference.
Like many gatherings in this pandemic year, the Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival in San Miguel de Allende had to make the decision to go virtual. But organizers have decided to see the upside of the virtual format, which will be done completely on Zoom video conferencing this season.
“Maybe the best feature of these historic online interviews is that everyone has a front-row seat along with the opportunity to “go up on stage” afterward for a personal chat with the author,” says conference cofounder Susan Page.
For an event that attracts attendees from around the world and prestigious guests every year, the conference is known for being an event where the barriers between attendees and guests are thin. Most guest speakers hang out after their event and talk with audience members. The conference is also known for its relaxed atmosphere of interaction and networking among attendees, with many connections and friendships made.
So organizers have worked to preserve as much of that intimate atmosphere as possible. For example, the usual question-and-answer events now have an option to submit a question for the speaker at the time of registration. Also, thanks to the Zoom format, the usual “chat with the author” opportunity is just a screen away and attendees can still interact virtually between events.
This year, the conference features an impressive line of guest speakers and interviewees — Margaret Atwood, Diana Gabaldon, Isabel Allende, Geraldine Brooks, Lawrence Wright and many more. The guest list includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, three Giller Prize winners, an Emmy winner, and two authors with No. 1 books on the New York Times bestseller list.
Besides the headlining guests, the conference for writers and lovers of literature will also feature 24 skill-building workshops for fiction and nonfiction writers, also to be conducted on Zoom.
Anaya: 'The government invests poorly in things that make no sense, like the absurd Dos Bocas refinery.'
The runner-up in the 2018 presidential election has slammed President López Obrador for the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and associated economic crisis as well as its broader management of the economy.
In a video posted to social media, former lawmaker and National Action Party (PAN) leader Ricardo Anaya charged that Mexican families are suffering an “unprecedented economic crisis” and that the government is deflecting blame for it by saying that the coronavirus came here from abroad.
“Two things must be clarified. Firstly, it’s true that the pandemic isn’t López Obrador’s fault but the terrible management of it is his fault,” Anaya said four days after Mexico became the fourth country in the world to record 100,000 Covid-19 deaths.
“It’s a little bit like the captain of a ship that has to navigate in the middle of a storm. The storm is not his fault but the decisions he takes at the helm are his responsibility,” he said.
“Secondly, the economic problem started well before the pandemic. In other words, when this started the ship was already damaged because in the first year of López Obrador’s government we had our worst [economic] growth in a decade,” Anaya said.
The former candidate, who finished a distant second to López Obrador in the 2018 election and is now positioning himself as a leading voice of the conservative PAN, claimed that the president doesn’t understand that economic growth is needed in order for people’s living standards to improve.
“Although the president doesn’t understand it, the reality is that there is not a single country in the world where … people’s wellbeing has improved without economic growth,” Anaya said.
“… If the course is not corrected, this will be the first time in history in which the Mexican economy will be smaller at the end of the [government’s] six-year term than when the six-year term started.”
The former PAN leader said that major factors in the lack of economic growth even before the pandemic are that the government is not using public money wisely or creating investor confidence.
“Our government invests poorly, in things that make no sense like the absurd Dos Bocas refinery that will always lose money,” Anaya said.
“There is something that is key for there to be investment, something that takes years to get and which can be lost in an instant: confidence,” he added.
Anaya during the 2018 election campaign.
“Perhaps the biggest mistake of all the mistakes of this government in economic matters is the fact that both Mexican and foreign investors have lost confidence [in Mexico].”
He criticized the government’s cancellation of oil block auctions and the “illegal consultations” it has held prior to suspending projects such as the airport and a brewery that was under construction by a United States company in the country’s north.
“With López Obrador in government investment is at its lowest level in more than 20 years,” Anaya said, citing data from the national statistics agency Inegi.
“This is very serious because the investment of the government certainly matters but that of companies matters a lot more,” he said.
“This is what López Obrador never understood: in Mexico for every peso that the government invests, private companies invest six. That’s why it’s so important for the government to create an environment of confidence, to invite private investment, because if there is no investment, there won’t be growth, employment and wellbeing.”
Anaya, who announced his return to public life in September, also said that it is “unforgivable” that “the government left people and businesses to their own fate” amid the coronavirus-induced economic downturn.
“Among the 20 largest countries of the world, Mexico helped businesses and companies affected by the pandemic the least. More than half a million [businesses] have gone bankrupt, a lot of people were left without work,” he said.
“The question is what can we do to grow [the economy] again. The immediate key is to control the pandemic,” Anaya said before citing 10 areas where changes are needed.
He said the government needs to ensure the rule of law and combat corruption, improve public security (Mexico is on track to record its most violent year on record), build infrastructure that makes the country more competitive, increase investment in scientific research, education and public health and improve tax collection and the way public money is spent.
Anaya also said the government needs to provide certainty to investors, promote clean energy, reduce inequality, ensure economic stability, promote regional development and implement policies to boost productivity.
“We’re a country of very hard working people,” he said.
“The only thing that Mexicans need to prosper is an environment that encourages investment – clear rules, access to quality education. In Mexico we can achieve it but we need a government that allows us to work and helps us to prosper instead of dedicating itself to getting in the way.”
Cream cheese is often known in Mexico as queso philadelphia, a cultural nod to the Kraft company's version. It shows up in many Mexican recipes.
Recently Profeco, Mexico’s consumer protection agency, cited many of the country’s most popular cheese brands for dishonest labeling and false claims “to the detriment of consumers and with information that could cause them to be deceived.” The much-beloved Philadelphia brand cream cheese was included on that list.
I’ve long wondered whether the Philadelphia cream cheese sold in Mexico has a different formula than the one sold in the United States. Both are made by Kraft Foods, but the texture and consistency in Mexico seemed much more rubbery than the one available north of the border. While I don’t eat a lot of queso crema, every time I do, I’m a little disgruntled.
So I embarked on what turned out to be almost a fruitless endeavor, calling the Kraft Foods customer hotlines numerous times in both Mexico and the U.S., only to hear recordings that no one was available. I sent multiple emails in both languages to customer service reps in both countries with no response, although I did learn that unopened regular cream cheese in its original packaging can be frozen for up to two months.
In the meantime, I examined the ingredients on packages from both sides of the border. They do indeed have different ingredients and different percentages of milk fat and moisture. In Mexico, cream cheese contains locust bean gum and xanthan gum and has less milk fat and moisture content than permitted in the U.S.
It’s also a smaller package — 180 grams or 200 grams as opposed to 220. U.S.-sold Philadelphia cream cheese contains whey, whey protein concentrate and carob bean gum—thickeners that result in a more natural texture. Hmmm. Searching the website once more, I discovered a chat option. Although it took a rep more than 24 hours to answer, at long last I was able to chat live with someone.
With DIY cream cheese, you can control the amount of milk fat it contains.
She had no comment about the Profeco situation — and indeed, Philadelphia cream cheese continues to be sold even after it was supposedly removed from shelves — but she did shed some light on the formulas. Yes, she confirmed, “our portfolio is dynamic. Each region has its need for products, and there may be slight changes in them.”
So there you have it, folks. But wait — what about making it yourself? Si se puede! DIY cream cheese is easy! See the recipe below.
Cream Cheese
Don’t use ultrapasteurized milk or cream — it won’t curdle properly.
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup milk
1¼ cups plain yogurt
½ tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. white vinegar
In a large saucepan over medium heat, whisk cream, milk, yogurt and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes. Add vinegar, bring to a rolling boil for 30 seconds, then lower heat to simmer for 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Cool in the pot for 1 hour.
Line a fine-mesh strainer with a clean cotton tea towel (or three layers of cheesecloth) over a bowl. Pour mixture into strainer; cover top with plastic wrap and refrigerate to drain for 6-8 hours or overnight. (Longer than this may dry out the cream cheese, in which case you can fold in a bit of cream or milk.)
Discard liquid from bowl and spoon cream cheese into an airtight container, stirring until smooth. Makes about 1 cup. Store, refrigerated, for up to two weeks.
Cream cheese adds a nice, thick consistency to homemade Alfredo sauce.
Perfect Alfredo Sauce
This tastes so much better when you make it yourself!
½ cup butter
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese
2 tsp. garlic powder OR 2 cloves minced fresh garlic
2 cups milk
6 oz. grated Parmesan cheese
⅛ tsp. black pepper
¼ cup minced fresh parsley
Melt butter in medium non-stick saucepan over medium heat. Add cream cheese and garlic, whisking until smooth. Whisk in milk a little at a time; add Parmesan, pepper and parsley.
Cook carefully until sauce is desired consistency. Toss with hot pasta to serve.
Cream cheese is the secret ingredient in these decadent cookies.
Cream Cheese Cookies
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. Cream butter and cream cheese with a mixer. Add sugar; beat until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla till thoroughly combined. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture. Beat until just combined. Cover. Chill for an hour.
Preheat oven to 375 F. With damp clean hands, portion dough into balls of about two tablespoons. (Dough will be sticky.) Place two inches apart on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
Bake 8-10 minutes until edges set and beginning to turn color.
This version of Enchiladas Suizas uses a whole package of cream cheese.
Chicken Enchiladas Suizas
Feel free to use your own homemade salsa verde.
3-4 cups cooked, shredded chicken
Salt & pepper
2 Tbsp. butter
1 onion, minced
2 jalapeños, seeded and minced
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, cut into small chunks
4-6 garlic cloves, minced
½-1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 (28 oz.) can green enchilada sauce
7 flour tortillas
8 oz. shredded Chihuahua or Jack cheese, divided
Heat butter in large nonstick skillet over medium heat; cook onion and jalapeños about 5 minutes; stir in cream cheese and cook till it melts and softens. Add fresh garlic, red pepper flakes and chicken; remove from heat.
Pour half the green sauce into bottom of a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Spread a line of chicken mixture down the center of each tortilla, sprinkle with cheese, roll up and place into baking dish, seam side down. Pour remaining sauce over the enchiladas. Sprinkle remaining cheese over the top. Bake until filling is hot and bubbling and cheese has melted, 30-35 minutes.
Cream cheese balances the spicy kick of these jalapeño poppers
Grilled Jalapeño Poppers
12 large jalapeño chiles
4 oz. cream cheese
1 cup shredded smoked Gouda or Cheddar cheese
Salt
6 slices bacon
Toothpicks
Heat a gas grill for medium direct cooking. Cut jalapeños in half lengthwise, leaving halves connected at the stem. Remove seeds and ribs. Cut bacon slices in half. Mash cheeses in a bowl with a little salt. Fill jalapeño halves evenly and press halves back together to close. Wrap each with a half-slice of bacon. Secure with a toothpick if necessary.
Put jalapeños on grill directly over the fire. Close lid and cook, carefully turning once, until peppers have softened and browned (it’s okay if they char in spots), cheese has melted, and bacon is crisp. 8-15 minutes.
Janet Blaser has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life and feels fortunate to be able to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Her first book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, is available on Amazon. Contact Janet or read her blog at whyweleftamerica.com.
The two men who were paraded on the streets of Guasave.
For the third time this year, video has emerged on social media of unknown persons forcing young men to walk semi-nude through the streets of Guasave, Sinaloa, with their hands tied and bearing written messages implicating them as disloyal gangsters.
On Saturday, two young men were taken to the city center with their wrists tied in front of them and forced to walk through the streets wearing little clothing.
Declarations that they were chapulines (grasshoppers), a cartel term for gang members who join another, rival gang or who are caught profiting on their own, were written on their backs and on cardboard taped to their bodies.
According to witnesses, police observed the incident but did not intervene.
Local authorities interviewed by the newspaper El Universal said that they had received no reports of Saturday’s incident.
Witnesses also said the two men bore evidence of physical blows to the buttocks. On social media, commenters claimed that the two young men were captured in the nearby town of Batamote before being taken to Guasave.
This is the third time a similar event has happened in the city this year. On October 7, unknown persons forced three young people to walk nude through the Guasave’s city center with their hands tied behind their backs and cardboard signs taped to their chests declaring they were chapulines.
On March 12, photographs appeared on social media of a completely nude young man, his hands tied behind his back, showing evidence of blows to his back and buttocks, forced to walk in the center of Guasave followed closely by a vehicle.
According to witnesses at the time, police did not intervene in the two previous incidents either.
A woman is tested for Covid at a Mexico City testing station.
New Covid-19 rapid testing stations set up by the Mexico City government are proving to be popular.
The government last week established 26 new testing points where residents of the capital can be tested free of charge. On Friday, the first day of operation of the so-called “macro-kiosks,” a total of 2,246 people were tested including 336 citizens who were found to have the coronavirus.
About 150 people lined up in a socially distant way to get tested at a macro-kiosk outside the Etiopía Metro station in the capital’s Navarte neighborhood.
“I don’t feel unwell but I go out to the street a lot for my work,” one man told the newspaper Reforma when asked why he decided to get tested. “My main concern is my family,” he explained.
A woman lining up to get tested also told Reforma that she didn’t feel sick but explained that she was exposed to the virus and wanted to find out if she was infected.
“I’m here because I had contact a week ago with someone who had Covid and I want to be responsible and find out if I have it or not,” Gabriela Arellano said.
She said that the free testing stations were a good idea because not everyone has the means to pay for a test at a private clinic.
Another woman who did have coronavirus-like symptoms also said that providing free testing was a good idea. Mónica Torres, who recently lost a loved one to Covid-19, said she believed that the virus was becoming more prevalent in the community.
A total of 10 people tested positive at the macro-kiosk outside the Etiopía station, Reforma reported.
Dr. Mónica Ramírez, a health official in the Benito Juárez borough where the station is located, said that some of those who tested positive “went into denial or even questioned the reliability of the test.”
Authorities also detected 74 new coronavirus cases among just over 500 people who had free rapid tests on Friday at government healthcare centers.
Mexico City health chief Jorge Alfredo Ochoa Morena described the introduction of rapid testing as a “breakthrough.”
“People no longer have to wait several days for their results. Now in 15 or 20 minutes maximum it’s known if a person is positive or negative,” he said.
Ochoa said the macro-kiosks will each perform about 150 rapid tests every day of the week except Sunday. He said that people should only get tested if they have coronavirus-like symptoms or if they are aware they had contact with an infected person.
With the new testing stations now complementing government clinics and smaller health kiosks set up in hotspot neighborhoods of the capital, Mexico City authorities will carry out 10,000 tests per day, the health chief said, explaining that 7,000 will be rapid tests and the other 3,000 will be gold standard PCR tests.
Mexico City leads the country for confirmed coronavirus cases and Covid-19 deaths with 187,229 of the former and 16,870 of the latter. The capital recorded 1,316 new cases and 44 Covid-19 deaths on Sunday.
Mexico has a very low testing rate compared to most other countries and as a result both case numbers and deaths are widely believed to be much higher than official statistics indicate.
Mariachis give a concert in Mexico City to draw attention to their plight.
They are one of the enduring symbols of Mexico, with their distinctive black suits and oversized sombreros. But, say the mariachis of Mexico City, the people behind the symbol won’t endure much longer if something isn’t done to help them during the coronavirus pandemic, which has dealt the city’s traditional musicians an economic death blow.
“We are at the point of dying,” says Hermino, a Mexico City mariachi and member of Salvemos al Mariachi (Let’s Save the Mariachis), a group of the city’s traditional musicians who gathered Sunday at the city’s Monument to the Revolution in the city center to give a free, socially distanced concert to publicize their cause.
“We feel alone and isolated from a policy that [Mayor] Claudia Sheinbaum said would be inclusive, but it’s not.”
The group wants the city to give financial help it promised to ease the economic plight that Covid health protocols prohibiting public gatherings have forced upon them.
The city’s mariachis are famously a fixture at places like Garibaldi Plaza, public gathering spots in the historic center that normally attract tourists who pay to hear the musicians play Cielito Lindo and El Rey. But these sites have been closed to the public since March due to Covid.
Even worse, the real bread and butter of these musicians is large private gatherings like weddings or birthday parties, which have been prohibited for months.
Musicians have been clinging to hope after government promises of economic support were made to them early in the pandemic, but money has been slow in coming or nonexistent, they say.
Andres Navarro says the city’s labor department has failed to come through with financial payments it promised nine months ago. He also accused the Cuauhtémoc borough government of having convinced 18 mariachi groups to perform for the public on Independence Day, September 15, without paying them.
“It’s unfair that they made us work and at the end of the day, they haven’t given us a peso,” Navarro said.
The choice of yesterday’s date for the gathering was not an accident: on November 22, Mexico City normally hosts a free mariachi concert in Garibaldi Plaza each year in honor of Santa Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians. The event attracts thousands of people for dancing, drinking, partying, and singing. Naturally, the event did not happen this year.
It is a day that would normally employ many a mariachi.
They may symbolize Mexico, say Hermino and his fellow musicians, but mariachis been largely forgotten. About 5,000 families are believed to be dependent on Mexico City’s mariachis, he said, but they haven’t been able to work for half a year.
“The authorities haven’t given us the necessary support. They don’t even know how many we are … We already don’t have Garibaldi, we don’t have anything. We are a species in a terminal phase if things don’t get better or [the pandemic doesn’t] end soon,” he said.
Social Encounter Party Deputy Nayeli Salvatori lights up a pipe of marijuana to celebrate last week's Senate vote.
Mexico is one step closer to becoming the world’s largest legal marijuana market after the Senate passed a bill last week to legalize the recreational use of the plant.
Eighty-two senators voted in favor of the legalization of pot while just 18 voted against it. The bill now needs to be approved by the lower house of Congress to become law.
That is expected to occur before a December 15 deadline set by the Supreme Court, which ruled last year that laws forbidding the use of marijuana are unconstitutional.
Most lawmakers with the ruling Morena party, which has a majority in both houses of Congress, as well as some from opposition parties support the legalization of marijuana so the bill’s final passage is expected to be a mere formality.
With a population of almost 130 million, Mexico would become the most populous country in the world to legalize the recreational use of marijuana nationwide.
The bill passed by the Senate allows the possession of up to 28 grams by adults but they would be prohibited from smoking in front of children. People would be permitted to grow up to six plants at home and a licensing system for large-scale production and sale would be established.
One critic of the bill is the Catholic Church. The Archdiocese of Mexico said in a statement on Sunday that the lower house of Congress should modify it to “emphasize health and public safety.”
“The bill that was approved does not address the health damages that arise from an ever increasing use of marijuana, does not address the effects on families due to young people’s consumption of drugs, and does not contribute to reducing and inhibiting exposure to drugs,” the council said.
“Public health and welfare are no longer the priority,” the bishops said, charging that the bill cedes to “the tastes of individuals, even though they may damage others.”
The council also said that “the demands for irresponsible liberty for a few are placed above the common good and health.”
Although the bill received strong support in the Senate, not all pro-cannabis senators were happy about it.
Zara Snapp, marijuana activist: ‘A historic step in the right direction.’
The day before it was approved, Emilio Álvarez Icaza, an independent, and Indira Kempis Martinez of the Citizens Movement party, held a bizarre press conference to announce that they would vote against the bill.
Appearing alongside the senators at the press conference in an outdoor patio of the Senate was prominent marijuana activist José Rivera, who compared prohibition to a “subtle holocaust” over the past century and asked for forgiveness from the Jewish community.
He compared to the federal government to Nazis because the legalization bill requires licenses to be obtained in some instances and doesn’t allow smoking in public places.
A live stream of the press conference on the official Twitter account of the Senate was abruptly cut off when Rivera lit a joint.
Although his remarks were not entirely coherent, Rivera’s protest “reflected a growing dissatisfaction with the bill,” Vice News said, noting that it has been revised on numerous occasions in recent weeks and months.
Zara Snapp, a pro-marijuana activist and co-founder of the Mexican research and advocacy organization Instituto RIA, said that “Mexico has taken a historic step in the right direction” in moving to legalize recreational pot.
But she added that “we are passing a law that does not fully decriminalize the activities related to the plant before regulating it.”
Snapp said that some aspects of the bill, including limits on the number of plants people can grow at home and where they can smoke, constitute a restriction on rights.
Some advocates of legalization argue that changes to the bill were designed to make it more favorable to wealthy Mexican investors and large foreign marijuana producers interested in entering a new, large and potentially very lucrative market. According to Vice News, the advocates say there will be limited business opportunities for “humble marijuana-cultivating communities, small Mexican entrepreneurs, and local home aficionados.”
Snapp highlighted that there was a late modification to the bill which removed limits on “vertical integration.”
The bill had stipulated that businesses could only be licensed to participate in one of four parts of a legal cannabis industry – cultivation, transformation, research or commercialization. Only poor residents of communities who have long grown marijuana would be eligible for multiple licenses.
However, as a result of a last-minute modification, everyone – even big businesses – will have the opportunity to participate in multiple parts of a legal weed market.
Additional addendums could be made to the bill before the Chamber of Deputies votes on it but that would appear unlikely because a new vote would also be needed in the Senate.
Nevertheless, Snapp said that “we will continue to push for this to be a better bill until the last moment,” adding “then we will work on the implementation.”
“[We] believe that drug policy reform is one of the crucial steps towards peace building in the country,” she said. “And if we do it with a social justice focus it will have the impact that we all desire here in our country.”
