Pubdate: Tue, 22 Oct 2013
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Uki Goni

URUGUAY TO SELL LEGAL MARIJUANA AT $1 A GRAM IN BID TO HIT DRUG TRAFFICKERS

Radical Rethink of Way to Tackle War on Drugs Government Will Bring 
in Strict Quality Controls

Buenos Aires - Uruguay is set to become the first country in the 
world where the sale of cannabis will not only become legal and 
government controlled but, at around $1 a gram, probably also the one 
with the most affordable marijuana anywhere.

A senate vote to legalise the drug is expected in mid-November as 
part of an effort in the South American country to explore 
alternatives in the war on drugs.

The head of Uruguay's National Drugs Board, Julio Calzada, said the 
government would set the price of cannabis low in the hope of pushing 
drug traffickers out of the market.

"The illegal market is very risky and of poor quality," he said. "The 
price of marijuana from Paraguay that gets sold on the streets here 
is about $ 1 a gram, so we're going to set the price of government- 
controlled cannabis at around that same price. We want to snatch the 
market away from the drug traffickers." It will take a few months 
after that to organise a system through which cannabis will be sold 
freely at pharmacies.

"The system will be in place around mid-2014," Calzada told the 
Uruguayan newspaper El Pais. "So there'll be time to harvest and 
start selling."

Smoking cannabis has long been legal in Uruguay, but growing, 
carrying, buying or selling it has been punishable by prison terms. 
About 120,000 of the country's 3.4 million population consume 
cannabis at least once a year, according to the National Drug 
Council. Of these, 75,000 smoke it every week and 20,000 every day.

"In reality, cannabis only costs about half a dollar a gram to 
produce in Uruguay," said Juan Vaz, 46, a computer programmer and 
veteran legalisation campaigner from the capital city, Montevideo. 
"So when the government says that by next year we could be buying it 
at $1 a gram, that sounds very reasonable."

The proposed price it is considerably lower than that of legal 
cannabis in the US states of Washington and Colorado where the drug 
has already been legalised. In those American states marijuana sells 
for between $8 and $17 a gram.

"A friend of mine bought marijuana at $12 a gram in Colorado 
yesterday," said Vas. "The difference is that in those US states 
marijuana is sold in an open market, while in Uruguay the price will 
be fixed by the state.

"It'll be like milk. The price of marijuana will be fixed right down 
the line, just like the government sets the price dairy farmers get 
for their milk and then sets prices all along the milk supply line 
right down to the price of a carton of milk at the supermarket."

Uruguay's government will also control the psychoactive level of the 
cannabis sold through the pharmacies to the consuming public by 
testing the THC content of the plants grown under the new system. THC 
(tetrahydrocannabinol) is the main psychoactive ingredient of the 
cannabis plant. The National Drugs Board is setting the THC content 
at between 5% and 12%, said Calzada. "The 40g a month limit for 
individuals could vary a little because of this,"he added, depending 
on the THC content of the cannabis sought.

The government will also be advising on how best to consume the drug. 
"Apart from being vulcanised or smoked, it can be vaporised, which is 
much less harmful, or in food such as brownies," said Calzada.

Although the government will control the quality and set the price of 
the drug, production will remain in private hands. "At the beginning 
there was some confusion about this," said Vas, who started 
campaigning for legalisation a decade ago after serving a year in 
prison for planting cannabis at his home.

He added: "People believed the government itself was going to plant 
and sell cannabis. But the government will intervene only to regulate 
the market, to licence land for marijuana plantations, but the whole 
chain of production, distribution and sale through pharmacies will be 
in private hands."

Consumers will be required to enrol in a national database that will 
remain strictly confidential and available only for consultation by 
pharmacists to enforce the 40g a month limit.

"The important thing is to take away the sale of cannabis from the 
drug dealers," said Vas. "As things stand today, drug dealers try to 
push harder drugs on teenagers who go to them for cannabis. This law 
will change that and prevent cannabis from at least in this sense 
being a step to more potent drugs." 
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom