Pubdate: Mon, 30 Jul 2012
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2012 The New York Times Company
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Damien Cave

SOUTH AMERICA SEES DRUG PATH TO LEGALIZATION

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - The agricultural output of this country includes
rice, soybeans and wheat. Soon, though, the government may get its
hands dirty with a far more complicated crop - marijuana - as part of
a rising movement in this region to create alternatives to the United
States-led war on drugs.

Uruguay's famously rebellious president first called for "regulated
and controlled legalization of marijuana" in a security plan unveiled
last month. And now all anyone here can talk about are the potential
impacts of a formal market for what Ronald Reagan once described as
"probably the most dangerous drug in America."

"It's a profound change in approach," said Sebastian Sabini, one of
the lawmakers working on the contentious proposal unveiled by
President Jose Mujica on June 20. "We want to separate the market:
users from traffickers, marijuana from other drugs like heroin."

Across Latin America, leaders appalled by the spread of drug-related
violence are mulling policies that would have once been
inconceivable.

Decriminalizing everything from heroin and cocaine to marijuana? The
Brazilian and Argentine legislatures think that could be the best way
to allow the police to focus on traffickers instead of addicts.

Legalizing and regulating not just drug use, but also drug transport -
perhaps with large customs fees for bulk shipments? President Otto
Perez Molina of Guatemala, a no-nonsense former army general, has
called for discussion of such an approach, even as leaders in
Colombia, Mexico, Belize and other countries also demand a broader
debate on relaxing punitive drug laws.

Uruguay has taken the experimentation to another level. United Nations
officials say no other country has seriously considered creating a
completely legal state-managed monopoly for marijuana or any other
substance prohibited by the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on
Narcotic Drugs.

Doing so would make Uruguay the world's first marijuana republic -
leapfrogging the Netherlands, which has officially ignored marijuana
sales and use since 1976, and Portugal, which abolished all criminal
penalties for drug use in 2001. Here, in contrast, a state-run
industry would be born, created by government bureaucrats convinced
that opposition to marijuana is simply outdated.

"In 1961, television was just black and white," said Julio Calzada,
secretary general of Uruguay's National Committee on Drugs. "Now we
have the Internet."

But kicking the prohibitionist habit, it turns out, is no easy task.
Even here in a small, progressive country of 3.3 million people, the
president's proposal has hit a gust of opposition. Doctors, political
rivals, marijuana users and security officials have all expressed
concern about how marijuana would be managed and whether legalization,
or something close to it, would accelerate Uruguay's worsening problem
of addiction and crime.

Mr. Mujica, 78, a bohemian former guerrilla who drives a 1981
Volkswagen Beetle, seems to be surprised by the response. He said this
month that if most Uruguayans did not understand legalization's value,
he would suspend his plan while hammering out the details and building
public support. But this is a defiant leader who spent more than a
decade in jail as a political prisoner, so even as he discussed
postponement, he signaled that he might not be willing to give up,
emphasizing that drug users "are enslaved by an illegal market."

"They follow the path to crime because they don't have the money," he
said, "and they become dealers because they have no other financial
means to satisfy their vice."

His government, which has a slim majority in Parliament, is moving
forward. One of the president's advisers said this month that draft
legislation would be submitted within a few weeks, and Mr. Calzada,
among many others, has been hard at work. His desk is covered with
handwritten notes on local drug markets. A career technocrat with the
long, wispy hair of an aging rocker, he said he had been busy
calculating how much marijuana Uruguay must grow to put illegal
dealers out of business. He has concluded that with about 70,000
monthly users, the haul must be at least 5,000 pounds a month.

"We have to guarantee that all of our users are going to be able to
get a quality product," he said.

He added that security would be another challenge. Drug cartels
protect their product by hiding it and with the ever-present threat of
violence. Uruguayan officials, including Mr. Sabini - one of several
lawmakers who openly admits to having smoked marijuana - favor a more
neighborly approach. They imagine allowing individuals to cultivate
marijuana for their own noncommercial use while professional farmers
provide the rest by growing it on small plots of land that could be
easily protected.

The government would also require users to sign up for registration
cards to keep foreigners away - an idea influenced by a new policy in
the Netherlands, which restricts marijuana sales to residents - and to
track and limit Uruguayans' purchases (to perhaps 40 joints a month,
officials say). Finally, there would be systems set up to regulate the
levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and levy taxes on
producers, relying for enforcement on the agencies regulating tobacco,
alcohol and pharmaceuticals.

Officials acknowledge that by trying to beat kingpins like the Mexican
Joaquin Guzman, known as Chapo, at their own game, Uruguay would need
to co-opt old foes and join forces with the same drug aficionados it
has been sending to jail for years.

That means cozying up to people like Juan Vaz. A thin, dark-haired
computer programmer and father of three who is perhaps Uruguay's most
famous marijuana activist, Mr. Vaz spent 11 months in prison in a few
years ago after being caught with five flowering marijuana plants and
37 seedlings. In an interview, he compared marijuana to wine, and
expressed both interest and alarm at the government's plans. He said
he was pleased to see the Mujica administration tackle the issue, but
like many others, he said he feared government control.

Personal marijuana use is already decriminalized in Uruguay, so Mr.
Vaz, 45, said the idea of a registry for producers and users amounted
to an Orwellian step backward. "We're concerned about the violation of
privacy," he said.

Other growers and smokers, who spoke on the condition that they were
not fully identified, appeared more eager to take part. Martin, 26, a
bearded programmer whose closet full of marijuana plants added a
unique aroma to his apartment complex, said his friends had been
talking about starting a small marijuana farm.

Gabriel, 35, a dealer and user who lives downtown, said that he
welcomed a legal market and hoped it would hamper the darker side of
the drug business. He said that he had been selling marijuana on and
off for 15 years - moving a little more than two pounds a month - and
that the people he bought from had often pressured him to take on more
dangerous drugs like cocaine paste, a cracklike substance that has
spread wildly through the region since 2001.

"Pasta base," as it is called here, is generally blamed for Uruguay's
recent rise in drug addiction and violent crime, and Mr. Mujica has
said that legalizing marijuana would break the cycle of addiction and
delinquency that begins when users become dealers.

Many in the drug treatment community have their doubts. "You're never
going to get rid of the black market," said Pablo Rossi, director of
Fundacion Manantiales, which runs several residential treatment
centers in Montevideo.

But Gabriel said that big dealers would inevitably adapt. The question
is: for good or ill? Maybe they would start selling cocaine cheaper,
he said, causing more problems. Or maybe they would be pushed out of
the drug business entirely. For now, at least, they mostly seem to be
afraid of change: he said a kilogram of marijuana (2.2 pounds) now
costs about $470 in Uruguay, up from around $375 before the
legalization proposal was announced.

"They are trying to make as much money as they can," Gabriel said.
"They think legalization is imminent."

Emily Schmall contributed reporting from Buenos Aires, and Lis Horta
Moriconi from Rio de Janeiro.
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