Pubdate: Sat, 26 Oct 2013
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2013 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/mVLAxQfA
Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: Juan Forero, Uruguay National Drug Board
Page: 18A

URUGUAY ON VERGE OF LEGALIZING MARIJUANA PRODUCTION AND SALE

FLORIDA, Uruguay - Pot connoisseurs of the world take note: Uruguay is
about to go where no country has gone before by legalizing the
cultivation and distribution of marijuana, with the left-of-center
government regulating all facets of the trade.

The initiative runs sharply counter to the Obama administration's
anti-drug policies, which criminalize the use of marijuana, heroin and
cocaine and rely on tough interdiction tactics to stop the flow of
drugs from Latin America.

But Julio Rey is eagerly preparing for the day when he and his friends
can form a cannabis club to grow marijuana in the lot next to his home
in this sleepy farming town 60 miles north of the capital, Montevideo.

"To be a grower, once this is up and running, will be something like
being a sommelier," said Rey, 38, who already has eight budding plants
he lovingly tends in two specially lighted cabinets.

Under a bill approved by the lower house of Congress and facing a
Senate vote in weeks, Uruguayans will be able to grow up to six plants
in their homes. Cooperatives of up to 45 members will be able to
cultivate as many as 99 plants for their own use.

Growers in places such as this rural town also would likely produce
for the larger market, selling their harvest to the government. The
drug would be supplied to pharmacies, the only retail outlets allowed
to sell to individual buyers. Users will have to sign up in a federal
registry, and it will be illegal to sell pot to children or foreigners.

"This proposal is in line with Uruguayan culture and the role the
state has historically had in regulating social vice," said Sebastian
Sabini, a congressman who led the campaign for the bill. "We're going
to set prices, limit what is produced, prohibit advertising. It's
planned and controlled and regulated by the state, where there are
private players but the state sets the rules."

What the government of PresidentJose "Pepe" Mujica is advocating -
which will surely become law because of his movement's comfortable
majority in the Senate - will make this country of just 3.4 million
people a trailblazer. Under Mujica, a 78-year-old former guerrilla,
Uruguay has adopted a raft of liberal policies on issues from same-sex
marriage to abortion.

The Uruguay proposal is similar to the law in one U.S. state,
Colorado, where users will soon be able to buy marijuana at licensed
stores and grow a small amount at home. And the Netherlands long ago
legalized consumption, with smokers enjoying joints in special cafes.
But cultivation there is banned, and no other country has moved to
make the production and mass distribution of marijuana legal.

Julio Calzada, director of the government's National Drug Board, said
the objective is to dismantle a black market that has been supplying
Uruguay's 25,000 habitual users with cheap marijuana smuggled in from
Paraguay. Calzada said the new system would shrink the illegal market
for marijuana, valued at $20 million to $30 million, and the amount of
crime associated with it.

"People traffic drugs to make money, and we are taking that away,"
said Calzada. "We're not saying that we're going to end the black
market. We're saying we're going to seriously upset it."

Uruguay's new drug strategy is a challenge to the U.S.
counter-narcotics strategy. President Barack Obama has said that
legalization of drugs is not a workable recourse, even as some leaders
in Latin America have called for a new policy in the face of soaring
numbers of dead in the drugwar inMexico and Central America.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Pooja Jhunjhunwala said that
while Uruguayans can decide which drug policies are most appropriate,
the Uruguayan government "has the obligation to comply with its
international treaty commitments." She was referring to the 1961 U.N.
convention on drug control, which prohibits the distribution,
possession and use of marijuana and other drugs.

But Kevin Sabet, a former drug policy adviser in the Clinton, Bush and
Obama administrations, said Uruguay was taking a huge risk.

"I think they should understand that they're on the brink of creating
a public-health crisis," said Sabet. He is co-founder of an advocacy
group, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, that proposes education and
treatment for users but not jail sentences or legalization of drugs.

The government has not adequately analyzed the implications of the
bill, said Veronica Alonso, an opposition congresswoman in Uruguay.

"We're a laboratory where we don't know the consequences," she said.
"There's no scientific evidence that says the narcotraffickers will
say, OK, we can't operate in Uruguay, we'll go somewhere else."

What is clear is that legalizing the marijuana trade will bring people
who grow marijuana into the open. Marijuana use has been
decriminalized here since the 1970s.

Indeed, Calzada told the Montevideo newspaper El Pais that the price
set by the government would be the same as that offered by Paraguayan
dealers: $1 a gram, the equivalent of what he called a thick joint.
Under the law, individuals can buy up to 40 grams per month, or 1.4
ounces.

Here in the town of Florida, Rey said he is giddily awaiting the go
ahead to plant next to his house.

On a recent day, Rey walked in the overgrown lot next to his home and
spoke enthusiastically about the freedom he will feel growing
six-foot-high plants of cannabis sativa and its cousin, cannabis
indica. He said he and his friends would surely hold barbecues to deal
with the inevitable munchies that come with smoking.

"As you know, that's one of the inconveniences," Rey said with a
laugh. "You want to eat everything you can get your hands on."
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MAP posted-by: Matt