Our good friends, the Uruguayan politicians, have legalized marijuana

[WFA]

Conflicts over turf, profit and power in Latin America’s drug war have claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, from Tijuana to Montevideo. While Washington wants to keep throwing bullets and prisons at a problem that requires broad-based social, political and economic solutions, various political leaders and grassroots movements in Latin America have argued for the legalization of drugs as one way to stem the drug war’s spiraling violence.

In December of last year, Uruguay became the first country in the world to enable its government to fully legalize and regulate the cultivation, sale, distribution and use of marijuana. This small country’s challenge to the orthodox approaches to the drug war may provide some steps out of the labyrinth of one of the region’s bloodiest conflicts in recent memory.

“In no part of the world has repression of drug consumption brought results. It’s time to try something different,” explained Uruguayan president José Mujica in a 2013 speech at the UN General Assembly.

Unlike the legalization efforts in the US, the new marijuana regulation push in Uruguay came about not from a wave of public demand, but through internal discussions within the Frente Amplio, the political party of the progressive Mujica. Party leaders wanted to take advantage of their majority in both houses of Congress to pass the legislation. The goal was to develop a policy that would weaken drug cartels by taking away a key profit source, and regulate, rather than criminalize marijuana trade and use in the country.

“This law being attempted is a regulation,” Mujica explained in his UN speech. “It’s to regulate something that already exists and that’s in front of our noses, right there at the door of the schools, on the street corners. It attempts to snatch this market from the underground, identify it and expose it to daylight.”

Within Uruguay’s population 3.3 million, 120,000 use marijuana at a minimum of once per year, with roughly 75,000 smoking each week, and 20,000 each day, according to the country’s National Drug Council.

At this point, the legalization would allow people to buy 1.4 ounces (40 grams) each month from government-sanctioned vendors for the equivalent of roughly US$1 per gram. Users must be at least 18 years old and need to be registered in a confidential government database organized to monitor the number of purchases. On the production end, approved growers will be allowed to maintain a maximum of six plants per household, with cultivation limited to roughly 17 ounces (480 grams). Marijuana “clubs” will also be allowed, in which 15-45 growers can come together to grow 99 plants annually.

Uruguayan government officials working on the program say it is designed to steer people away from the black market by providing high quality marijuana at prices that are the same or lower than the weed provided by unregulated competitors. The extent to which the regulation will help to finance existing social programs is also notable. Funds generated from the state program will support public healthcare and prevention programs, according to Uruguayan government drug policy advisor Agustin Lapetina. The question of whether or not the government will provide subsidies to help offset the cost of marijuana is still being debated.

Rules surrounding this state controlled market are expected to be heavily enforced; illegal growers and distributors can face serious jail time. The government’s plan doesn’t allow for marijuana to be sold to foreigners, nor can the state sanctioned weed cross the Uruguayan border.

Originally planned to be applied this year, the government announced in July that it will delay its marijuana program until 2015 due to “practical difficulties.” Mujica told reporters, ”If we want to get this right we are going to have to do it slowly. We are not just going to say, ‘hands off and let the market take care of it,’ because if the market is in charge, it is going to seek to sell the greatest possible amount.”

While this legalization program is a hopeful move in the right direction, in the context of the wider drug war, its sphere of influence is limited. Uruguay doesn’t come close to experiencing the same levels of drug war-related conflict as Mexico and Central America, and just as the cartels themselves operate across borders, complicity in the drug war’s violence and impunity spans the continent, from mining companies and police officers, to presidents and judges.

Uruguay’s legalization efforts make sense in a senseless drug war. But this sense needs to be extended beyond the country’s borders for it to be fully effective.

Which is why, earlier this year, President Mujica called upon leaders in the US and Europe to follow in Uruguay’s footsteps and legalize marijuana. “The industrial societies are the ones that have to change,” Mujica told Reuters. “For a small country, it’s possible to experiment with this, but it’s also very possible for a developed country because of the resources it has … Until things change there, it will be very difficult to change elsewhere.”

Uruguay’s marijuana legalization law should be a wake up call to political leaders across the hemisphere stop applying the failed policies of the past, and instead address the structural changes that need to happen to end the drug war.

“Legalizing marijuana, as in Uruguay, is a good step, but it is only a first step,” explained Dawn Paley, investigative journalist and author of the forthcoming book Drug War Capitalism. “It is important to keep in mind that the real moneymakers, which fund the paramilitarization of drug production and trafficking, are cocaine and harder narcotics. Until narcotics are legalized or decriminalized on an international scale, violence and mass incarcerations under the pretext of the war on drug will continue.”.

www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/24/on-uruguays-legalization-of-marijuana/

[Len Cnut]

Good...now for the rest of the world to grow up and catch up and realise that this harmless herb is just that...a harmless herb. Not to mention an extremely useful one. Ichense.

[spliff]

1 dollar a gram?

that's 2 decent sized joints

1 dollar here will get you 2 cigarettes

[Len Cnut]

you get two decent sized joints out of a gram?

[spliff]

yes

[OmarBradley]

you get two decent sized joints out of a gram?

Can't tell if that's too much for you per joint......or too little?

[Rovim]

Way of the future.

[Len Cnut]

you get two decent sized joints out of a gram?

Can't tell if that's too much for you per joint......or too little?

Too little.

[WFA]

I'm curious to what our good friends, Len, Arnold, and Snake-pit, think about this. I for one am glad this is happening. It gives me hope one day the US will move towards this.

[Russel Nash]

What? you can't have mary jane in the US?

It's the same here in Argentina, it isn't legal. But everyone can have one if they know where to look.

[Len Cnut]

I'm curious to what our good friends, Len, Arnold, and Snake-pit, think about this. I for one am glad this is happening. It gives me hope one day the US will move towards this.

Whatcha mean interested, i commented up there You need to lay off that narcotic hooray for tolerance!, the shit done made you null and void

[wasted]

I'm moving to Uruguay.

[spliff]

What? you can't have mary jane in the US?

It's the same here in Argentina, it isn't legal. But everyone can have one if they know where to look.

colorado and washington legalized it but it's still illegal federally. some states it's decriminalized (no jail time/criminal record) and it's like a parking ticket but other states like texas they'll lock you the fuck up and shoot your dog

Edited September 26, 2014 by spliff

[Gordon Comstock]

It's great that legalization is finally starting to happen but it's also pathetic that in 2014 only one country in the world has done it. Sounds like a great system they set up, too. It would be fantastic if I could walk to the store whatever day I wanted and just pick up some weed, especially 40 grams to last me a month.... shit I buy a lot now and I'm not near that.

[Fucking Little Schemer]

A waste of time, heres why.

Users must be at least 18 years old and need to be registered in a confidential government database organized to monitor the number of purchases.

[Not An FSB Agent]

If there is one thing that the Volstead Act(US prohibition act) and the resulting 18th Amendment demonstrated, it is that prohibition creates a violent distribution network and a shit load of, otherwise law abiding, criminals.

The US incarcerates about 3% of its population- greater numbers than any other country, even China, Russia, and others one thinks of as totalitarian- and a great number of those jailed are for victimless crimes like marijuana possession and distribution. Fully 50% of those in the criminal justice system are there for drug crimes.

It is time to end this War on the Drugs and use those funds that are spent for law enforcement and prisons for treatment and rehabilitation centers.

[Johnny Drama]

A waste of time, heres why.

Users must be at least 18 years old and need to be registered in a confidential government database organized to monitor the number of purchases.

Do you have a point?

[Dazey]

A waste of time, heres why.

Users must be at least 18 years old and need to be registered in a confidential government database organized to monitor the number of purchases.

Do you have a point?

I don't see the problem personally.

[wasted]

We've got a file on you.

[AxlisOld]

If you have a credit card, guess what, you're already on that list.

[feconroses]

I am from Uruguay, haven't voted for Mujica but I am 100% with this bill. Hopefully it's a good 'experiment', so other bigger countries can move in the same direction. War on drugs must end.

[arnold layne]

I'm curious to what our good friends, Len, Arnold, and Snake-pit, think about this. I for one am glad this is happening. It gives me hope one day the US will move towards this.

I don't smoke pot.

[Snake-Pit]

Not 1 flying fuck given;

I smoke it even once went into buying and selling, but.... I'm not in Uruguay.

[Strange Broue]

I'm moving to Uruguay.

I consider this too

1 dollar for a gramm is like free beer and eternal life

or i can grown my own shit, but i'm too lazy

Edited September 29, 2014 by Motivation