Pubdate: Wed, 23 Oct 2013
Source: Fort Collins Coloradoan (CO)
Copyright: 2013 Associated Press
Contact: http://www.coloradoan.com/customerservice/contactus.html
Website: http://www.coloradoan.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1580
Author: Kristen Wyatt, Associated Press

COLORADO POT INDUSTRY ON DISPLAY AT DRUG-POLICY CONFERENCE IN DENVER

DENVER (AP) - Dignitaries from three nations sniffed marijuana, 
walked through greenhouses full of tagged marijuana plants and 
learned about video pot surveillance on a three-day Weed 101 tour in 
Colorado, which has a regulated marijuana market and is planning to 
expand sales to all adults in a few weeks.

More than two dozen visiting officials from Canada, Mexico and 
Uruguay made the trip this week. Colorado is preparing to play host 
for 1,000 drug policy experts and legalization backers at the 
International Drug Policy Reform Conference.

"We see the hypocrisy of the American policy toward Latin America," 
said Julio Calzada, drug czar in Uruguay, which is expected to become 
the first country in the world to license and enforce rules for the 
production, distribution and sale of marijuana for adult consumers.

"We have thousands of deaths, simply a product of prohibition. And 
here you have a very regulated market, marijuana that is produced in 
a controlled fashion. That is where we are going."

Calzada and the other dignitaries toured marijuana dispensaries and 
growing sites. They also huddled with Colorado officials to learn 
about how the drug is taxed and sold.

The three-day tour wrapped up as Colorado is preparing to play host 
for 1,000 drug policy experts and legalization backers at the 
International Drug Policy Reform Conference.

Marijuana legalization will be a major topic at the conference. 
Colorado and Washington state have authorized pot possession for all 
adults over 21, with retail sales beginning next year. Conference 
attendees are all interested in rethinking drug policy, if not 
legalizing pot outright. The dignitaries scribbled in notebooks, took 
pictures with their phones and huddled with interpreters to learn the 
nuances of the legal drug market in the U.S.

Visitors from Mexico, where nationwide legalization isn't under 
serious consideration, said their country is watching closely to see 
how Colorado and Washington policies play out.

"I think we need to see this as an opportunity," said Fernando 
Belaunzaran, a Mexico City congressman who supports marijuana legalization.

"We've had 100 years of prohibitionist policies, and no one has paid 
a higher price" than Mexico, Belaunzaran said.

The tour also attracted two pro-legalization members of the Canadian 
Parliament.

"Colorado has put together a pretty impressive regulatory scheme," 
said Sen. Larry Campbell of Vancouver.

The visitors all gaped at the numbers of cameras they saw in Colorado 
dispensaries, along with the computer tracking accessed with 
biometric authentication, a fingerprint held to a computer.

The owner of one of the dispensaries on the tour, Norton Arbalaez, 
boasted that his dispensary tracks plants "the same way Walmart does tracking."

The whole thing got a laugh from Camilo Collazo, a legalization 
advocate from Mexico.

"It was amazing, how American all this was," Collazo said with a 
laugh after the tour. "It's all dignified, very American, business 
efficiency first."

Collazo expects other countries will interpret marijuana regulation 
differently, but still be inspired by change in the U.S.

"The United States has no longer legitimacy to enforce the law abroad 
without enforcing it here. So I think politicians worldwide are more 
open to looking at this, too."

Public polls in the U.S. show mounting support for legalizing the 
drug. A nationwide Gallup poll released this week showed 58 percent 
think pot should be legal. The poll surveyed 1,028 people by phone Oct. 3-6

When Gallup first asked the question in 1969, only 12 percent favored 
legalization.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom