Uruguay legalises marijuana

[Magda Hassan]

While in Obama's US they bust medical marijuana dispensaries they have legalised it in Uruguay. The thin end of the wedge and it will be vigorously opposed by those that profit in human misery like the US.

Uruguay MPs back marijuana legalisation bill


Members of Uruguay's House of Representatives have passed a bill to legalise marijuana.

If it goes on to be approved by the Senate, Uruguay will become the first country to regulate the production, distribution and sale of marijuana.

The measure is backed by the government of President Jose Mujica, who says it will remove profits from drug dealers and divert users from harder drugs.
Under the bill, only the government would be allowed to sell marijuana.
The state would assume "the control and regulation of the importation, exportation, plantation, cultivation, the harvest, the production, the acquisition, the storage, the commercialisation and the distribution of cannabis and its by-products".
Buyers would have to be registered on a database and be over the age of 18. They would be able to buy up to 40g (1.4oz) per month in specially licensed pharmacies or grow up to six plants at home.
Foreigners would be excluded from the measure.
Political tussle The bill was approved by 50 of the 96 MPs present in the lower house following a fierce 13-hour debate in the capital, Montevideo.
The supporters of the measure argued that the fight against drugs and drug trafficking had failed, and the country needed "new alternatives".
"The regulation is not to promote consumption; consumption already exists," said Sebastian Sabini of the governing centre-left Frente Amplio (Broad Front) coalition, which has a majority of one in the lower house.
If approved by the Senate as expected, this will become a groundbreaking law, but not only for Uruguay. For decades, drug trafficking has caused thousands of deaths throughout Latin America in countries like Mexico or Colombia.
Legalisation has long been taboo for governments who aligned with the US anti drug policy, heavily dependent on law enforcement and prohibition.
This is still considered the orthodox approach and it is supported by conservatives and the Catholic Church.
But more and more leaders, like Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina and former Mexican president Vicente Fox, are asking to discuss decriminalising some drugs in an attempt to undermine the cartels.

Marijuana use has reportedly doubled in Uruguay over the past year. An estimated 22 tonnes of marijuana are being sold in the country annually, according to Uruguay's National Drugs Committee.
But Gerardo Amarilla of the opposition National Party said the government was "playing with fire" given the health risks he said were linked to marijuana use.
All eyes were on Dario Perez, a member of the governing coalition but a strong opponent of the bill, whose vote could have scuppered the bill.
During his 20-minute speech, Mr Perez reiterated his belief that the issue should be put to a referendum and not have been "imposed" by the government.
But to applause by supporters of the bill in the public gallery, he finally concluded that as long as he was a member of the coalition, he would vote with it, despite his personal misgivings.
The bill is now expected to be approved by the Senate, where the left-wing government has a bigger majority.
But opposition politicians said that even if the law made it through the senate, they would launch a petition to have it overturned.
A survey carried out before the vote by polling organisation Cifra suggested 63% of Uruguayans opposed the bill.
Papal opposition The progress of the bill is being watched closely across the region, says BBC Mundo correspondent in the region Ignacio de los Reyes.
President Jose Mujica says he has never tried marijuana but believes it should be legalised

For decades, drug trafficking has caused tens of thousands of deaths throughout Latin America.
Uruguay may have not experienced the bloodshed caused by drug trafficking, but the proposal could be seen as a test for violence-torn nations looking for an end to their drug wars, our correspondent adds.
The vote also comes just days after Pope Francis criticised drug legalisation plans during a visit to neighbouring Brazil.
The pontiff said it was "necessary to tackle the problems which are at the root of drug abuse, promoting more justice, educating the youth with the values that live in society, standing by those who face hardship and giving them hope for the future".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23516966

[Magda Hassan]

What Uruguay's Legal Weed Means for the War on Drugs

August 3, 2013 By Peter Watt
Peter Watt's ZSpace Page / ZSpace
Uruguay is set to become the first country to legalise marijuana use, cultivation and possession following a century of often authoritarian prohibition laws across the globe. In a landmark vote on President José Mujica's recent proposal, the Uruguayan Congress overwhelmingly voted in favour of legalisation and it is expected that the bill will pass through the Uruguayan Senate in the next few weeks.
The Uruguay vote comes amid a heightened regional scepticism about the benefits of prohibition and US-led military strategies to enforce repressive anti-narcotics legislation. Even a number of former and current Latin American leaders of the political right have called for the legalisation of marijuana, presumably in recognition of the terrible socio-economic suffering the "war on drugs" has wrought over the last 40 years.
Significantly, the move by Mujica's government is an indication of growing regional independence. John Kerry may still refer to Latin America as the US' "backyard", but it a part of the world increasingly escaping Washington's hegemonic grasp.
After all, the war on drugs was principally an American invention, launched by President Nixon when he declared that narcotics were the country's "public enemy number one". Since then, the war on drugs has provided a pretext for military and political intervention in Latin America (and Asia) and increasingly brutal and repressive social control within the United States. The passing of the new law in Uruguay may be a preliminary step to dismantling a war whose fraudulence and hypocrisy easily compares with its Cold War and "war on terror" counterparts.
Last year, Washington State and Colorado approved laws which allow for the recreational use of marijuana and it is quite possible that other states will follow their example in the near future. These moves have the potential to halt some of the absurdities of the drug war, even if similar legislation is not adopted at the federal level.
These new laws also reflect a growing scepticism among the US public about the benefits of prohibition. Consider that in 1969, a year noted for the sudden increase in pot smoking among Americans, about 12% of the population favoured legalisation. Compare the rather conservative 1960s with attitudes today: a poll conducted this year by the Pew Research Center found that 52% of Americans favour the legalisation of marijuana.
Such a change in attitudes also reflects increased popular awareness about the drug and a cynicism about politicians' scaremongering and their blatant manipulation of the facts. In the United States, for example, it's perfectly legal for tobacco to kill about 440,000 people every year. Around 80,000 deaths in the US are caused annually by excessive use of legally-purchased alcohol. And yet there are precisely zero recorded deaths from overdoses of marijuana.
The laws related to marijuana consumption, possession and cultivation may seem overly harsh to a rational observer. However, those who have an interest in maintaining the status quo, such as the private prison industry, the arms industry and the US political elite, are unlikely to disappear.
In the US, marijuana users have found themselves serving longer prison sentences than murderers and rapists. Thanks to Bill Clinton's "three strikes" law, some cannabis users have faced life imprisonment. Such measures led one scholar of Nazi law, Richard Lawrence Miller, to compare legislation targeting drug users to that used in Germany to marginalise and exclude Jews from mainstream society. Michelle Alexander terms the drug war, "The New Jim Crow", after the name given to laws that enforced segregation in pre-1960s America. She argues that current practices overwhelmingly target Afr ican-Americans, even though studies demonstrate that they use and sell drugs at a level equal to or lower than their Caucasian counterparts.
Indeed, since Nixon declared drugs as "public enemy number one" at a time when drug use was actually in decline, the US prison population has increased from about 0.3m people to 2.3m, the largest incarceration in world history. And America locks up more black people proportionally than South Africa during apartheid, predominantly as a result of anti-drug legislation.
While incarcerating hundreds of thousands of young African-American males for minor drug offences may seem puzzling, it nonetheless makes sense to the booming private prison industry. With the devastation of much of the blue collar workforce as a result of neoliberal economic policies, the economic contribution and value of a whole sector of society has been put to a different purpose. On this, notes American journalist Chris Hedges:
Poor people, especially those of colour, are worth nothing to corporations and private contractors if they are on the street. In jails and prisons, however, they each can generate corporate revenues of $30,000 to $40,000 a year.
One compelling argument in favour of legalisation is that it will seriously undermine the profits of organised crime. Yet narcotics (including marijuana), for example, might account for about half of the profits of some Mexican cartels. Organisations like Los Zetas are impeccable capitalists and are constantly in search of new markets. The Zetas have expanded into people smuggling, sex trafficking, extortion, piracy and even the petroleum industry and coal mining, and these represent huge sources of income.
The issue therefore runs much deeper than mere legalisation and decriminalisation. If there are no efforts to address the root causes of the explosion and growth of organised crime, what is to say criminal syndicates won't simply expand into other very profitable markets?
Uruguay's move will hopefully provoke a serious international debate on legalisation. But this debate must also address who will control marijuana production in newly-legalised states. Could growing be organised within local communities and be controlled by consumers, or will legalisation provide a pretext for transnational corporations, perhaps led by big pharmaceutical companies, to muscle in? From their perspective, why should upstart delinquents control the market and accrue massive profits when white collar professionals can run things so much more efficiently?
One potential problem is that the global market might become monopolised, creating what would be a legal but perhaps even more powerful cartel. But for now, Uruguay's move is clearly a positive step.

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From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/what-uruguay-s-legal-weed-means-for-the-war-on-drugs-by-peter-watt

[Magda Hassan]

$1 Per Gram For Pot In Uruguay

BY MIKE ADAMS · TUE OCT 22, 2013

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In an attempt to combat the country's drug-trafficking problem, officials in Uruguay say they will begin selling legalized marijuana to its citizens for $1 per gram in 2014. That is considerable lower than the $2.50 estimation the country's drug czar reported last year.
The law to establish a government-regulated and operated marijuana industry was approved earlier this week in the lower house of Congress, which will serve to make Uruguay the first country in the world to license and implement guidelines for the production, distribution and sale of marijuana for adult consumers.
Drug chief Julio Calzada says that marijuana sales are expected to begin around the second half of 2014 and be sold for $1 per gram, which is a whole lot less than what medical marijuana dispensaries sell it in the United States -- prices can range from $8 to $14 per gram.
He says that the measure is not intended to make money, but to create a market that will prove hostile for the illegal drug trade. "The illegal market is very risky and of poor quality," said Calzada. "The State is going to offer a safe place to buy a quality product and on top of that, it's going to sell it at the same price."
Marijuana sales will be conducted for locals only, who will reportedly be permitted to purchase 40 grams per month.
Chiefing it up in Uruguay has been legal for sometime, but the act of growing, carrying, buying or selling has come with stiff prison sentences. Calzada says he feels confident this measure will serve as an excellent alternative to the war on drugs.

http://www.hightimes.com/read/1-gram-pot-uruguay