The recreational use of marijuana isn’t legal in Mexico yet, but that’s not stopping owners of a new café in Mexico City from taking a first step in being a cannabis-friendly establishment.
According to EFE, La Juanita is Mexico City’s “first Amsterdam-style coffee shop” that is “exploring cannabis culture” with novelty food items made only from the non-psychoactive ingredients of the cannabis plant. This includes hemp seeds added to the guacamole and hummus found on the menu. Note: Hemp seeds won’t get you high.
“[La Juanita] is a space where we’ll have non-psychoactive, hemp-based food and beverages because there’s still a lack of regulation of the psychoactive,” co-founder Carlos Zamudio says. “But there’s regulation of hemp that allows for these types of foods and beverages.”
Zamudio adds that La Juanita is cannabis-friendly because they offer menu items “within the bounds of what’s legally possible.”
What’s legally possible is still currently being debated by Mexico’s lawmakers. The country’s Supreme Court called a ban on the recreational use of marijuana unconstitutional in 2019, but new regulations have not been passed by the Senate yet. The Senate has asked the Supreme Court for an extension until April 30.
While Zamudio says they would like to attract customers who use psychoactive marijuana and those who enjoy the cannabis plant’s less stimulating components, their “ultimate goal” is not to sell the psychoactive drug in their café.
If Mexico ends up making recreational marijuana legal, it will be only the third country in the world to do it nationwide–after Uruguay and Canada.
Now, we’re curious how tasty a bowl of cannabis caldo de res would be with a few hashish corn tortillas.