Uruguay votes for regulated cultivation and sale of marijuana

slimvictor

slimvictor

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Uruguay’s lower house of Congress voted on Wednesday to create a government body to control the cultivation and sale of marijuana and allow residents to grow it at home or as part of smoking clubs.

The use of marijuana is already legal in the South American nation, but sale and cultivation is not.

After hours of spirited debate, 50 lawmakers voted for the bill and 46 against it. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure backed by leftist President Jose Mujica later this year.

Mujica, a former leftist guerrilla fighter, says the bill would control the marijuana trade under strict guidelines, help undermine drug-smuggling gangs and fight petty crime.

To avoid making the country a drug tourism destination, only Uruguayans would be allowed to use marijuana.

Critics say the measure risks luring more Uruguayans to harder drugs and could rile fellow Latin American countries battling drug-related violence such as Colombia and Mexico.

Uruguay is one of Latin America’s safest countries and is considered a trailblazer on liberal lawmaking. But polls show most Uruguayans oppose the proposal.

“We are playing with fire,” said congressman Gerardo Amarilla, a member of the conservative National Party, which opposes the bill.

“In trying to find an outlet for change we are burying ourselves in a reality that is far worse,” Amarilla added.

The legislation would establish a National Cannabis Institute to control the drug’s production and distribution, impose sanctions on rule-breakers and design educational policies to warn about the risks of marijuana use.

Households would be permitted to grow up to six plants, or as much as 480 grams (about 17 ounces) of marijuana per year under the measure. It also would set regulations for smoking clubs with up to 15 members, 90 plants and annual production of up to 7.2 kilograms (15.8 pounds).

cont at
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...g-pot-in-fight-against-crime/article13542887/
 
Uruguay: gateway nation to legalisation of marijuana

Telegraph

By Alex Spillius
1:35PM BST 01 Aug 2013
Other countries could well soon follow the lead of Uruguay, which has taken a major step towards legalising the growth, production and possession of marijuana.

The centre-left government last night narrowly won a vote in the lower house to create a legal market for the drug. It is expected to win the subsequent vote in the Senate where it has a bigger majority. This is the most dramatic step in South America towards abandoning the expensive and deadly war on drugs, began 40 years ago by Richard Nixon. The Uruguay state would assume "the control and regulation of the importation, exportation, plantation, cultivation, the harvest, the production, the acquisition, the storage, the commercialisation and the distribution of cannabis and its by-products".

Buyers would have to be registered on a database and be over the age of 18 and would be able to buy up to 40g (1.4oz) per month in specially licensed pharmacies or grow up to six plants at home. Before any of our student readers start booking flights to Montevideo: it should be pointed out that foreigners would be excluded from the measure.



The presidents of Colombia and Guatemala are among other leaders in the region to have publicly advocated for a new approach to be found. Vicente Fox, a former president of Mexico, where an estimated 10,000 lives have been wasted in what is literally a war on the illegal trade, have said it is time for change. In the United States, California, Colorado and Washington have legalised cannabis. Luminaries including Bob Carr, the former Australian foreign minister co-signed a report saying the war on drugs is failing.

So momentum for reform is gathering. It is about time. The basic premise of the war on drugs – that legal enforcement would reduce illegal drug use - has been proved wrong. The US and Europe are awash with illicit substances. Consumers on the streets of New York and London simply don’t fear arrest. Nor do they appear to care about the horrendous damage being done by their lifestyle choices to producer or courier countries such as Colombia or Mexico.

The proliferation of “legal highs" is making a nonsense of prohibiting MDMA and cannabis. There are an estimated 700 websites in the EU alone selling these drugs. High demand and substantial profit margins have created a generation of global gangs and drug barons often supported by brutal militias. Legalisation would erode their business, if not eradicate it. Tax revenues would rise as legitimate business boomed. Prisons especially in the US, would be half-emptied. Concerns that legalisation would lead to soaring use of dangerous substances is not supported by the tolerant model in Holland, where cannabis consumption has if anything fallen in the coffee shop era.

Alongside the practical arguments against the war on drugs is the libertarian one that individuals should be trusted to take substances for their individual pleasure when those choices do not harm others. For now, Western leaders are not ready to countenance change, though one senses some appreciate the arguments against their obsolete policy. It would need coordinated action as states that legalise unilaterally, certainly in Europe, will always fear becoming a drugs magnet.

Uruguay’s bold step has brought such action closer.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...eway-nation-to-legalisation-of-marijuana.html
 
The US and Europe are awash with illicit substances. Consumers on the streets of New York and London simply don’t fear arrest. Nor do they appear to care about the horrendous damage being done by their lifestyle choices to producer or courier countries such as Colombia or Mexico.
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Every time I hear this I have to point out that it is prohibition that is responsible for the suffering of producer countries. These substances used to be consumed without carnage.

These countries also produce legal crops like coffee and bananas. There is no violence attached to those markets because they are not prohibited.

The international police apparatus created the black market. Now it turns around and says, "Look you dirty fucking junkies, your drug use is slaughtering brown people." Don't buy into their logic.
 
I am against the legalization of marijuana because it will lead to an increase in car accidents. Alcohol causes enough problems; we shouldn't make another harmful substance more available.
 
I am against the legalization of marijuana because it will lead to an increase in car accidents. Alcohol causes enough problems; we shouldn't make another harmful substance more available.
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Alot of people think they are safer drivers on weed, and weed isn't really a 'harmful substance', used in moderation I can't see how it could be classed as harmful (especially when used by people over the age of 18). Just because a small minority of dick heads will or would abuse the hell out of it and could possibly cause or be involved in some car accidents seems like a pretty unimportant issue in the whole legalisation debate imo. There are roadside drug testing facilities and the technology will probably get better, more accurate and more common over time.
 
Elven Warriorr said:
I am against the legalization of marijuana because it will lead to an increase in car accidents. Alcohol causes enough problems; we shouldn't make another harmful substance more available.
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^^^^Are you sure you didnt mean to say "THINK OF THE CHILDREN" ???? Just go back to your fucking straight edge forums kid
 
Nice to see they went ahead with this, as more and more places start doing this and time goes on the world will have no choice but to take notice of the fact that legalising cannabis is not the pandora's box so many seem to think.
 
Drug legalization in Uruguay: The experiment

from the Economist, August 3, 2003.
www.economist.com

Another blow against prohibition

After more than a year's public deliberation and a 14 hour parliamentary debate, on July 31st Uruguay took a big step to becoming the first country in the world to legalize marijuana (cannabis). The lower house of Congress voted on party lines, by 50 to 46, to approve a bill from the left wing Broad Front government to legalize and regulate the production and sale of the drug. This is now expected to be approved by the Senate, where the Broad Front has a larger majority. If so, Uruguayans will be able to consume marijuana by growing up to six plants at home, by joining a club, or by buying up to 40 grams (1.4 oz) a month from licensed pharmacies.

The bill has faced fierce opposition: a poll last month found 63% against, and opponents claim that consumption will rise. But its supporters argue that drug prohibition has caused more problems--in the form of organized crime and the risks of clandestine consumption--than the drugs themselves.

Uruguay's vote follows the approval of marijuana legalization in referendums in Colorado and Washington state in the US last year. In June foreign ministers of the 34 countries of the Organization of American States agreed "to encourage the consideration of new approaches" to the drug problem. Reformers hail these steps as breaking a taboo: in place of the strait jacket of universal prohibition imposed by the UN drugs conventions, the Americas are inching towards experiments wit alternative policies. That, they hope, will encourage drug policy based on evidence, rather than dogma.
 
Elven Warriorr said:
I am against the legalization of marijuana because it will lead to an increase in car accidents. Alcohol causes enough problems; we shouldn't make another harmful substance more available.
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That is just an excuse to be against legalization, I think.
Alcohol causes many problems, so therefore other drugs shouldn't be legal? What a strange perspective.
Shouldn't we make alcohol illegal, then, instead of keeping other, safer drugs illegal?
Where I live, there is zero tolerance for driving after drinking. Legal blood alcohol limit is something like 0.000001%. If they find any alcohol in your blood, it is considered drunk driving. And - guess what - there is almost no drunk driving here.
Not saying that this would work with weed, since it stays in your blood for weeks after smoking. Just saying that drunk driving (and I agree that it is a huge problem in the US) doesn't have to be such a problem, and should not be used as part of the argument about whether to legalize other, unrelated drugs.
 
Not saying that this would work with weed, since it stays in your blood for weeks after smoking.
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Yeah for blood tests maybe, but not for the swab tests that they do for road side drug tests here where they swab the inside of your mouth, a few people on BL have mentioned they have been swab tested by the cops like 4 hours after they had hit the bong and the results came up negative.
 
poledriver said:
Yeah for blood tests maybe, but not for the swab tests that they do for road side drug tests here where they swab the inside of your mouth, a few people on BL have mentioned they have been swab tested by the cops like 4 hours after they had hit the bong and the results came up negative.
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Nor does the high from weed last "weeks after smoking". At least IME, but hey, maybe I just have a fast metabolism. /wink
 
poledriver said:
Yeah for blood tests maybe, but not for the swab tests that they do for road side drug tests here where they swab the inside of your mouth, a few people on BL have mentioned they have been swab tested by the cops like 4 hours after they had hit the bong and the results came up negative.
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No kidding? That is good news.
I would prefer a field sobriety test, except that I don't trust that cops will be honest about it.
Sad that people can't trust the government, or the police force, or the large companies...
Says a lot about a country / system
 
Uruguay considers legalising marijuana as 'experiment', says President Jose Mujica

123097-uruguay-marijuana-legalization.jpg


URUGUAY wants to make a "contribution to humanity'' by legalising marijuana but will backtrack if the "experiment'' goes awry, President Jose Mujica has said.

Mr Mujica said he sees his country as a potential test case for an idea slowly gaining steam across Latin America - that the legalisation and regulation of some drugs could sap the cartel violence devastating much of the region.

"Like any experiment, naturally, there are risks, and we have to understand that if they prove too much for us then we must backtrack. We do not have to be fanatics,'' Mr Mujica said.

Last week a bill to have the government control and regulate marijuana sales and distribution was passed by the lower house of Uruguay's legislature.

The bill, which is backed by Mr Mujica's leftist government, now awaits action by the Senate.

By putting the government in charge of the marijuana industry, which is estimated to be worth $US30million- $US40 million ($33 million - $45 million) a year, the bill aims to curtail illegal trafficking and the violence that comes with it.

But opposition parties are against the idea and a poll released last week said so are 63 per cent of Uruguayans.

Many opponents fear the legalisation of cannabis would turn Uruguay into a pot tourism hub and encourage the use of stronger drugs.

Mr Mujica counters that the current policies have failed, citing both the moral and financial expense of the war on drugs.

He estimates that Uruguay, a small country with just 3.3 million people, spends upwards of $US80 million a year on combating drugs but seizes just $US4 million -$US5 million worth of contraband.

Cont-
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world-news/u...ca/story-fndir2ev-1226693125631#ixzz2bIqaJ45a
 
In 2005, Mujica married Lucía Topolansky, a fellow Tupamaro member and current senator, after many years of co-habitation. They have no children.
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Unfortunately, when he dies he will be the last of the Mujicas.
 
The only way it would make people take 'harder' drugs is because they had been lying to us for decades about how bad illegal drugs are, and people might realise this. If shit goes wrong just reverse it, they probably will anyway.
 
main strain will be called "Urugwow!"

Uruguay To Sell Legal Marijuana At Low Price Of $2.5 Per Gram To Compete With Black Market

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/06/uruguay-legal-marijuana-price_n_3713826.html

Uruguay's lower house passed an unprecedented bill last week that legalizes marijuana and regulates the production, distribution, and sale of weed for adult consumers. El Pais now reports via Univision that the bill fixes the price of marijuana around $2.50 per gram. The bill is up for vote in the Senate, where it is expected to be passed, and finally signed into law by President José Mujica, a longtime supporter of drug reform.

Such regulations could deter Uruguay's 120,000 or so marijuana users from leaving the black market, which is where the price point comes into play. Foreign Policy's Park MacDougald notes that the government has two tools at its disposal to lure customers into the legal market it seeks to create: affordability and quality control. While InSight Crime reports that the current cost of pot varies by region and can reach up to about $5 per gram, Julio Calzada, Uruguay's drug czar, told El Pais that the proposed fixed price of $2.50 per gram is on par with the going underground rates, the hope being that the competitive pricing will attract users to the legal market without providing a profit incentive for resale in the black market.
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While InSight Crime reports that the current cost of pot varies by region and can reach up to about $5 per gram,
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Here it can reach over 5 times that amount per g. Shit I wish it was two fiddy here, I'd be a happy stoner again, like I used to be, but I used to be happy and broke stoner.
 
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