While much of the focus on legalizing marijuana is on the United State there are countries making real progress South of the border.

The Supreme Court in Mexico handed down a landmark ruling in November that declared overall prohibition unconstitutional. The case was brought by four individual citizens. The arguments were not some long list of regulatory details but instead a more fundamental question of basic human rights.

Legal drugs could be even more lucrative.

Famous for its cocaine cartels—think Pablo Escobar and the hit Netflix show Narcos—Colombia now wants a cut of a different mind-altering substance: marijuana.

Colombia, famed for the violence of its cocaine cartels, is planning a move into the more genteel drugs business of marijuana-based oils and creams.

The Andean nation’s climate and regulations make it ideally suited to profit from the incipient trade in legal marijuana, Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria said in a Jan. 8 interview in his Bogota office. The country legalized use of the drug for medical purposes last month.

“This is going to be a new commodity, there’s an emerging global medical marijuana business,” Gaviria said. “This year, we’re going to see international companies coming to Colombia to produce medical marijuana.”

Number one: Canada elects a marijuana-legalizing prime minister.

The global anti-drug regime has been in place for more than a half century now, but the prohibitionist consensus has been crumbling for at least 20 years, and the decomposition continued apace this year.

The international treaties that make up the legal backbone of international drug prohibition still stand, but they are under increasing attack at the United Nations, which will take them up again next year. They are increasingly being breached (especially by marijuana legalization at the national and sub-national level) and nibbled away at around the edges by moves like drug decriminalization and some harm reduction measures such as supervised injection facilities.

While a 1986 law allowed for the manufacture, export, sale and medical and scientific use of marijuana, the practice was, until Tuesday, never formally regulated.Current law already allows possession of up to 20 grams of marijuana or cultivation of up to 20marijuana plants for personal use.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has signed legislation into law regulating the licensed production and exportation of cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Under the new policy, those seeking to grow medicinal cannabis commercially or manufacturer cannabis-based medicinal products may apply with government agencies for licensure. Regulators will also grant permits to those seeking to export medicinal cannabis products out of the country.

lombia on Tuesday became the latest in a growing number of nations around the world to legalize the use of cannabis for medical reasons.

However the rules vary widely across continents, with some countries permitting cannabis cultivation and others only allowing pharmaceuticals extracted from the drug.

A state of play:

– LATIN AMERICA –

– COLOMBIA: President Juan Manuel Santos signed a decree Tuesday making it fully legal to grow, process, import and export cannabis and its derivatives for medical and scientific use.

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos is legalizing the cultivation and sale of marijuana for medical and scientific purposes. “We do this through a decree that seeks to take advantage of the qualities of cannabis, or marijuana, to improve the life of people”.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos signed a decree Tuesday legalizing and regulating medical marijuana, the latest softening of the country's hardline tactics in the war on drugs.

"We have just taken an important step to place Colombia at the forefront of the fight against disease, with a decree... that allows licenses to be granted for the possession of seeds, cannabis plants and marijuana, and for the plant to be grown for exclusively medical and scientific purposes," Santos said in a nationally televised address.

"Permitting the use of medical marijuana does not go against our international commitments on drug control," he added.