Recently, Mexico had suspended the medical cannabis cards for non-residents with effect from Mid-year, a bill which was approved by the Legislature this Monday; and endorsed by the Governor.
The first state to open the Medical Cannabis program to its non-resident visitors is New Mexico. Based on this, residents from nearby states started to come to Mexico looking for 3-year medical cannabis patient cards to be issued from the state.
Over 600 people from Arizona, Texas and several other states have registered as patients in Medical Marijuana program in New Mexico from last September; which is based on a change done last year in state statute signed into law by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
The inflow of non-residents looking for Medical cannabis cards from New Mexico was caused by the court order passed in September, stating that Mexico drops its residency requirement in the medical marijuana program. Moreover, this order came from a challenge to Medical cannabis program law which was updated last June.
Further State health officials stated that the residency requirement was discontinued unexpectedly from the legislation. They further stated that they urged the legislators to restore the requirement arguing that this will tempt out-of-resident patients to transport illegal Marijuana across states.
Duke Rodriguez, Ultra Health CEO challenged the idea of federal intervention before the legislative panel stating that non-resident patients abide by the terms of new Mexico’s program as they search for relief in the last stage of cancer, qualifying for medical cannabis prescriptions.
Last year, Ultra Health influenced the court to pressurize the state to issue medical cannabis cards to non-residents. This was the most recent of the legal clash among the Health Department and an organization having more than 20 dispensaries all over the state that had pushed to increase the production on behalf of sufficient supplies to the patients.
In 2019, the house of representatives of New Mexico strongly approved the legislation by authorizing the use of adult recreational cannabis. When the legislation was stalled in the state senate, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham had assured to add this to the legislative agenda in 2020.