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Uruguay In Plan To Legalize Marijuana
Regular-MarijuanaUruguay’s leftist government has announced plans to legalise marijuana in a bid to halt rising crime.
The announcement, by the government of veteran former rebel leader José Mujica, would put production and distribution to registered users in the hands of the state, making Uruguay the first country in the world to grow and supply cannabis.
“We think the prohibition of certain drugs is creating more problems for society than the drugs themselves,” Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro, the defence minister, told a news conference presenting the measure as part of a broader crime-fighting plan.
The government believes legalising cannabis will undermine a business worth some $75m a year and stop people having to buy from dealers who are also pushing harder drugs such as “paco”, a highly addictive byproduct of the cocaine-making process
Marijuana possession is already decriminalised in Uruguay, one of Latin America’s least socially conservative countries, and even the Archbishop of Montevideo, Nicolás Cotugno, has come out in favour of initiatives to legalise cannabis cultivation for personal use.
The issue of legalisation has entered the US election campaign as a growing number of voters approve of the move and Colorado, a state that could be key to Barack Obama’s November re-election hopes, prepares for a ballot on ending prohibition.
The issue has been raised elsewhere in drugs-blighted Latin America but most initiatives to date have been from rightwing or centre-right governments.
Felipe Calderón, who is battling Mexico’s ruthless drugs cartels, has talked of seeking “market alternatives”, which commentators take to mean legalisation. Juan Manuel Santos, in cocaine-producing Colombia, has called for legalisation to help combat the traffic of hard drugs, as has Guatemala’s Otto Pérez Molina.
In Britain, the government has moved in the opposite direction, upgrading cannabis to a Class B from a Class C drug in 2008.
Uruguay’s pot proposal has to be approved by Congress but Julio Calzada, secretary-general of the National Drugs Board in Uruguay, said: “We have hopes that legislators from all four parties [represented in Congress] can support this measure.”
If so, marijuana would join other state monopolies, including in the oil and gas, telecoms and electricity and utilities sectors.
Mr Calzada said Uruguay would grow the cannabis but had not yet decided where it would be sold. The drug would probably be restricted to Uruguayans “so as not to fuel drug tourism”, he added.
Uruguay would take care “not to affect neighbouring countries or to be accused as a kind of international drugs making and distributing centre,” Mr Fernández Huidobro added.
Posted by Editor
on June 23, 2012. Filed under INTERNATIONAL NEWS.
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Manny
June 23, 2012 at 10:31 am
Zambia should follow suit.
Kakolwe
June 23, 2012 at 11:28 am
I hope we see a migration of all mobile ganja chimneys.
Barca 10
June 23, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Am buying a one way ticket to uruguay.
Under 5 molested in Tonganyoko land.
June 23, 2012 at 1:26 pm
I wish Zambia followed suit but I fear the Buntustans will soon demonstrate…..like they did on judges,,,
Umusambashi
June 23, 2012 at 9:11 pm
Britain’s is th best way to go.Apart from being used for treatment of rear;cardiac arrest,depression,performance,certain blood and bone ailments….highness…wht r th othr uses of ganja….tht cn cause a nation to legalise it?
mosquito
June 23, 2012 at 10:15 pm
You know what guys, ganja is highly profitable elsewhere in the world, so let’s also start this noble campaign so that we also legalise it and empower our peasant farmers hence creating more money in pipo’spockets, our economy will boom also. So am startn the campaign mailo and nxt year I will grow one ha.
bilken
June 24, 2012 at 8:52 pm
legalize marijuana
chikalansolo
June 25, 2012 at 12:25 pm
Products of Marijuana include; medicines,fabric(high grade)and paper.Marijuana is actually documented as A BILLION DOLLAR CROP….its criminalization was meant to protect certain American textile,cotton companies and saw-mills that were threatened by the growing demand for the competitively high grades of fabric,reliable medicines and paper that were being obtained from the Hemp…
chikalansolo
June 25, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Bangladesh(Land of the Bang or Hemp) actually draws its name from Marijuana.
umuntu
June 25, 2012 at 3:43 pm
It’s legal even in the Holland. Marijuana is legal, but it’s a developed country and you will never find a person begging in the streets. We have many accidents because of alcoholic beverages consumption. But none due to Marijuana. Emperor Selassie called for the first AU meeting, he was smoking Marijuana. We should be honest on this. How many diseases are cured by the use of Marijuana? There are all sorts of different benefits we get from this natural herb. It’s up to the people in high offices. We all know as humans we have a sense of curiosity, many are smoking marijuana simply because it’s forbidden by law, if it was made legal few people will abuse it.
Wanu Ngwee
June 25, 2012 at 8:08 pm
So let’s have Uruguay as a test case and see if Peter Tosh was right about Cannabis being the cure to:
1. Tuberculosis
2. Asthma
3. Glaucoma and many other ailments.
Remember how he always wondered why Church ministers, lawyers, judges, politicians, police inspectors, nurses and doctors kept consuming it if it were that dangerous!