By
 |
|
Uruguay's new law allows
consumers to grow marijuana at home and buy up to 40 grams a month [AP]
|
|
Montevideo, Uruguay - When Uruguay recently became
the first country in the world to legalise and regulate the production,
distribution and sale of marijuana, it was a long-time dream realised for
marijuana activist Juan Vaz.
But it also came with a lot of work and
campaigning. Vaz, a co-founder of the Uruguayan Association of Cannabis
Studies, is one of the most visible faces associated with the marijuana
legislation effort in the country.
He has long advocated for legalisation, and spent
time in prison for growing the plant. He says that experience was
life-changing and convinced him to fight for legalisation so that none of his
fellow cannabis users would suffer the same fate.
By some estimates, 120,000 marijuana consumers in Uruguay will
now be able to plant or buy the weed without penalty. According to the
Uruguayan Observatory on Drugs, a governmental organisation, the sale of
marijuana on the black market currently dominates the illegal drug trade in
the country, with estimated sales of $20m annually.
The new law allows consumers to grow up to six
female cannabis plants at home, join membership clubs with a 99-maijuana
plant limit, and purchase 40 grams of marijuana a month for recreational use.
Only Uruguayans or residents of the country will benefit from the measure.
The law excludes tourists in an attempt to prevent Uruguay from becoming a
"marijuana paradise".
Marijuana use has been legal in Uruguay since
1974, but buying, selling and planting the drug was not allowed. The new
legislation closes that gap, and also goes several steps further by
regulating the use of cannabis for medical, scientific or industrial
purposes.
The Uruguayan state will control the planting,
distribution and consumption of the drug. It will issue licenses to
institutions that want to be involved in the production, distribution or
selling of cannabis or in the hemp industry that has textile, cosmetic and
food applications.
The government will be competing with
black-market product, but most experts predict the government's blend will be
cheaper and higher-quality than that sold illegally. The country's National
Drug Council suggested that the initial price for the cannabis could be set
at $1 per gram, and said the product could possibly become available by the
middle of next year.
"I would say this [legislation] is the most
advanced in the world," said Hannah Hetzer, policy manager for the
Americas at the Drug Policy Alliance. Hetzer has been advising the
Uruguayan government and sharing examples developed at the local and state
level in other parts of the world including the US, where marijuana's
recreational use is legal in two states, California and Colorado, and allowed
for medicinal purposes in many other states.
But many in Uruguay are unhappy about the
legislation. In a poll taken earlier this year by Instituto Moris, two-thirds
of Uruguayans opposed the measure. Ignacio Zuasnabar, the head of the polling
firm, said opposition stemmed from fears that the law could open the door to
legalising harder drugs and cause an increase of crime due to increase in
drug use. And many in the medical field have raised concerns and warned of
the risks of marijuana use, especially among teenagers and children.
There is also criticism and concern over the
country being the "first" to test this unchartered territory.
"Neither our government nor the rest of the world should experiment on
Uruguayans," argued Alfredo Solari of the opposition Colorado Party
during Senate debate of the measure.
Uruguayan President Jose Mujica described the
measure in similar terms: "This is an experiment. We can make a
huge contribution to human kind."
Game-changer
First proposed by members of Mujica's
left-leaning Frente Amplio ("Broad Front") party, the measure
does not promote the use of cannabis, its proponents say - advertisements for
marijuana are prohibited.
Rather, it is designed to offer an alternative to a
law enforcement approach that has cost the world huge amounts of money with
few results. Over the past 40 years, the United States alone has spent
an estimated $1tn dollars in the so-called "war on drugs",
according to figures from the Drug Policy Alliance. Still, the use of marijuana and
other drugs remains widespread.
Supporters say the rationale behind the law is to
counteract the effects of drug trafficking and take revenue away from
black-market traffickers.
"Regulation offers more advantages than a
ban," Uruguayan legislator Sebastian Sabini told Al Jazeera. "When
you regulate an activity, you can potentially eliminate the black markets,
and the activity generates taxes that in return can be invested in education,
information and public health programmes."
Though it's the smallest country in South America
with just over three million people, Uruguay is making a big splash with the
new law. Mujica hopes the legislation will become a game-changer in the
"war on drugs" strategy.
The United Nations has already said Uruguay's
legislation violates the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, to which
Uruguay is a signatory. The measure has also drawn criticism from
Paraguay and Brazil, whose leaders have expressed concerns that the drug
might end up spilling across Uruguay's borders.
However, in a continent where the "war
on drugs" has been blamed for thousands of murders and where drug
trafficking is at crisis levels, the momentum for a different approach is
building.
"I think the debate is out there, and Uruguay is putting
an option on the table that could be studied and adopted to other national
realities in Latin America. I think this is going to have a huge impact in
the antidrug trafficking policy in the whole region, offering a concrete
answer," Hetzer said.
A lost war?
Support has come from Colombia, Guatemala, and
Mexico, all countries that have received US aid to continue the "war on
drugs". The Uruguayan initiative followed proposals discussed at the
Summit of the Americas held in Colombia last year. Those proposals called for
legalisation and regulation. US President Barack Obama, whose country is the
largest consumer of illegal drugs, rejected the proposal.
"The war on drugs - that is also a war on
drug users - has been lost," said Pablo Galain, a senior researcher at
Germany's Max Planck Institute for International Criminal Law. "Learning
from this failed game, Uruguay offers a different alternative."
Whether this alternative will be a huge failure,
an immense success, or adopted elsewhere has yet to be seen. But by
legalising marijuana, Uruguay has shifted the terms of debate. "I
think this is a change of paradigm on the international level," said
Galain.
It certainly has changed the game within Uruguay.
Activists like Vaz are already looking to the next steps. "The time
of fighting, protesting, asking for our rights and campaigning is over,"
he said. "Now it is about time to build things."
|
||||
Source: http://www.aljazeera.com
No comments:
Post a Comment