Uruguay May Have Legal Pot Shops Before Colorado or Washington Does
Last week a bill legalizing production and distribution of marijuana was introduced in Uruguay's General Assembly. It is more liberal than the plan floated by President Jose Mujica last June, under which the government would have been the sole legal source of cannabis. The legislation would instead create a National Institute of Cannabis, which would license growers. The bill authorizes home cultivation (up to six plants) as well as cannabis clubs with up to 15 members each, growing up to 90 plants and producing up to 7.2 kilograms a year. Personal possession would be limited to 1.5 ounces, more generous than the one-ounce limits in the legalization measures approved by Colorado and Washington voters two weeks ago. The allowance for home cultivation is the same as Colorado's but more than Washington's (zero). It looks like the main difference is Uruguay's club-centered distribution system, although Sebastian Sabini, a legislator from Mujica's party who had a hand in the bill, told Reuters there will be retail outlets as well. "We haven't said whether that will be done by the private or public sector," he said. "The government will decide that." Colorado and Washington both plan state-licensed, priivately run pot stores, while Oregon's unsuccessful legalization initiative would have charged the state with selling marijuana.
Reuters reports that "Mujica's allies control both houses of Congress, so the bill is expected to pass despite resistance from opposition legislators," possibly by early next year. If the law is enacted, Uruguay will become the first country to legalize marijuana. (While Spain has quasi-legal cannabis clubs and the Netherlands tolerates "coffee shops," neither country officially allows cultivation.) With a population of just 3.3 million and a land area of 68,000 square miles, Uruguay is smaller than both Colorado and Washington, which have a combined population of about 12 million and occupy 175,000 square miles between them.
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People seem to be making the allowance of marijuana more complex than need be.
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Well, yeah. Just wait til we get to cocaine legalization.
I don't know why you couldn't just add it to the alcohol regulation regime.
You have to have a liquor license to sell it, people can grow their own just like they can brew their own beer (up to a set amount - 6 plants seems popular).
On the DUI front, we seem to be stuck with the "deemed" intoxication blood tests, so you need a good test for that. I honestly don't know if that's possible, medically.
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Mujica is a centre-leftist I could vote for. He's what might be called a 'market leftist' (yeah I know I know). He's no Bolivarian and disparaged anti-Americanism and state-owned industry. He and his party are also giving women the right to abortion. And he's helping end the war on drugs.
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A recent write-up on him: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20243493
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B-b-but HISPANICS HATE FREEDOM!
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WINNING
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No, they love big government, and nothing in this dispels that notion. Rather than letting anyone grow it, they have an elaborate bureaucracy
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"No, they love big government"
And white people don't?
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U R GAY
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I believe Portugal legalized marijuana a decade ago.
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You believe? I believe there is currently nowhere in the world where cannabis has been legalized aside from enforcement technicalities such as medicinal and coffeeshops.
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Wrong. They decriminalized possession, they did not allow an unfettered market to develop though.
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As Groucho Marx once said--"Well you go Uruguay and I'll go mine!"