Uruguayan lawmakers pass bill legalizing the production and sale of marijuana

Uruguay on Wednesday became the first Latin American nation to relax its anti-drug laws. The Chamber of Deputies passed a bill that regulates the consumption, production, and sale of marijuana with the state having direct control over the market.

Consumers will be able to buy marijuana for their own use in pharmacies across the tiny South American nation.

Across Latin America more and more leaders and former presidents have come out in favor introducing similar laws as an alternative to help bring down the corruption and violence that comes along with drug trafficking. Last year, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina publically called for a debate on the legalization of certain types of drugs. His Central American country has been shattered by drug violence with a murder rate four times higher than that of its neighbor to the north, Mexico, another country besieged by the narco violence.

Even former Mexican President Vicente Fox – another proponent for the legalization and regularization of drugs – said recently: “If it was allowed I would grow marijuana.”

But Uruguay has been the only nation in the Western Hemisphere to make this plausible.

“We are in a in the middle of increased seizures while seeing a rise in the number of prisoners convicted for trafficking and yet this phenomenon does not stop, public insecurity and consumption have increased,” said Sebastián Sabini, one of the authors of the measure and a deputy for the Movement for Popular Participation, a party within the government’s Broad Front (FA) coalition.

Marijuana is dung whether or not it is backed by law”

"It was necessary to regulate a market that already exists to steer youths from the [drug selling points], stay healthy, and look for an alternative to what was being done before.”

Even though the law still has to go to the Senate for minor touchups before it is fully ratified, the structure of regularization has already been laid out.

The state will control the market and issue licenses to companies that will produce and distribute marijuana for general consumption. “We are a small country so about 20 hectares [the size of about 30 soccer pitches] will be sufficient [to cultivate marijuana plants],” said Sabini. The lawmaker estimates that there about 180,000 regular users of marijuana in Uruguay which is about 5.5 percent of the entire population.

Private growers will be allowed up to six plants each and cannabis clubs, which will be allowed to organize, can have up to 45 members and 99 plants at its disposal. Consumers who want to purchase marijuana from pharmacies will be allowed up to 40 grams on a monthly basis.

The marijuana regularization bill has been one of the most controversial moves ever made by President José Mujica, who has also introduced liberal laws as relaxing abortion and legalizing homosexual marriage

More than 63 percent of Uruguayans opposed the marijuana law, according to the result of a survey released this week by the polling firm Cifra.

Even politicians are bitterly divided over the issue. Mujica’s Broad Front coalition, with 50 deputies in Congress, called on all its members, whether they are in for or against it, to vote in favor of the bill. The 49-member opposition, which makes up the National and Colorado parties, voted against it.

The deciding vote depended on Broad Front Deputy Darío Pérez, who is a medical doctor and in the past weeks had shown resilience to the bill.

“Marijuana is dung whether or not it is backed by law,” he said during the debates in Congress in which he listed the medical problems it can cause. Nevertheless, party discipline prevailed and Pérez voted in favor of it.

Uruguay’s current law, passed in 1974 during the military dictatorship, allowed the consumption marijuana and other drugs but prohibited their production and sale.

Juan Vaz, one of the founders of the Association for the Study of Cannabis in Uruguay, was jailed for 11 months after the police discovered marijuana plants in his home.

Vaz, who for 20 years has been cultivating marijuana and was an advisor to the executive in the drafting of the bill, said there is “no ideal law but it is a lot better than what exists.”

“At least it does away with the prohibition model with respect to drugs,” he said.