“Someone has to be first,” former Uruguayan President José Mujica said in 2012 when asked about the possibility of legalizing the cannabis market in Uruguay, experimenting with an alternative to the prevailing prohibitionism. Some time later, in December 2013, your country's Congress passed a law that, for the first time in the world, comprehensively regulated the adult-use or recreational cannabis market. It is estimated that after a decade, 51% of Uruguayans who smoke this herb do so within legal frameworks: marijuana is sold in authorized pharmacies, it is possible to grow it at home or buy it in cannabis clubs. “The law appears to be achieving its goal of curbing drug trafficking,” said an official report last April. Access through this illegal market, explains the Uruguay XXI agency, fell from 58% to 24% between 2014 and 2022.
In 2013, Uruguay (population 3.4 million) took the opposite path to that taken by most countries, opting to legalize adult or recreational use of cannabis before regulating its use for medical or industrial purposes . Law 19.172, approved with the votes of the left and rejected by the center-right as a whole, established state control and regulation of the production, sale and consumption of cannabis and placed emphasis on preventing its problematic use , population security, etc., reducing drug trafficking. Decriminalization is progressing in many countries, but by 2023, only Uruguay, Canada and some states in the United States will fully legalize the commercial sale of cannabis for adult use, according to the report cited. In Colombia, Congress has just rejected this possibility, while in Germany a law for this purpose passed in August is due to be put into practice in 2024.
“We regulate to protect the rights of people who have freely chosen to consume. So that she knows what she is consuming and so that she is not forced to join forces with criminal organizations to gain access to cannabis,” said Daniel Radio, a doctor by profession and current secretary of the National Drug Board. “We receive news almost every day that a person has been injured, killed or arrested during a trial [policial] in a mouth [punto] sale [de droga] “Secretly, among the thousands of citizens who come to buy cannabis on the regulated market, we have never had this message,” emphasized Radio during an academic forum in November in Montevideo. And he asked those present: “Does this seem like a small step forward from a civilizational point of view?”
The Institute for Cannabis Regulation and Control (IRCCA) estimates that there are around 250,000 users of this plant in Uruguay. Of these, 86,207 are registered and gain access through one of the three legally provided channels: pharmacies, home cultivation or cannabis clubs. Thousands of others do so by sharing marijuana purchased legally. Therefore, IRCCA estimates that the real market reached 51% of consumers last year. The big challenge, experts emphasize, is to attract those who are still outside the regulated area. To this end, they propose to increase the points of sale and increase the variety of offers, currently focused on three types: Alpha, Beta and Gamma. The latter, which was introduced a year ago and had a greater psychoactive effect, led to 11,000 new users joining the regulated system, the IRCCA reports.
To buy marijuana in one of the 40 pharmacies licensed in the country, you must register, be over 18 years old and be a citizen or resident of Uruguay. The law does not provide for tourist access to the legal market. After registration, users can consume up to 40 grams per month (average monthly consumption in pharmacies is between 14 and 17 grams, according to IRCCA); Each pack contains five grams and the price is around 460 pesos, about 12 dollars. A total of 61,129 people are registered on the pharmacy buyer list; 14,592 are qualified as home growers (up to six plants are allowed), while 10,486 belong to the 306 cannabis clubs, each with a maximum of 45 members (they can grow up to 99 psychoactive cannabis plants).
Mandatory registration
In its April 2023 report on cannabis, the official agency Uruguay XXI claims that the law “seems to be fulfilling its objective of curbing drug trafficking in the country”, and in this sense points out that access through the illegal market “from 58 “Decreased by .2%”. in 2014 to 24% in 2022.” On this aspect, a study published in November by the Catholic University of Uruguay points out that there are “gray areas” in the regulated market where legally produced cannabis is sold illegally. “There is a mistrust of the registry and the confidentiality of data use. This leads to many users not being willing To through legal mechanisms,” said political scientist Lorena Repetto at the presentation of the study Gray areas, legal and illegal markets: 10 years of cannabis regulation in Uruguay.
Compulsory registration is one of the most controversial requirements of Uruguayan law, which would particularly affect users from the poorest social classes. Their accessibility is an open question, the study's authors claim, but also for those who live in areas of the country where none of the three legal access routes exist. In addition to the question of whether registration is appropriate or not, other topics also emerged in the forums held in Uruguay to mark the tenth anniversary of the law: the creation of new and different points of sale; allow larger numbers of members into clubs; Consider allowing visitors to access marijuana legally or increase the variety of offerings. Some experts also suggest taxing cannabis use (currently tax-free) and using the revenue to prevent and treat problematic use of the drug.
“The path of regulation has no turning back,” said Radio, secretary of the National Drug Board. The expert highlighted the “distinctive fact” that this regulatory policy was adopted by the previous left-wing government and continued by the current center-right governing coalition. “We are the generation of transition. “The heirs of a century of prohibitionism that promoted ignorance, prejudice and stigmatization, retarded progress, for example in research, and created numerous obstacles,” he added. Uruguay began retracing this path ten years ago, Radio continued, but warned that the country is “too silent” due to a lack of political decisions and interests at stake while the world advances in research and knowledge around cannabis .
Radio insisted that regulation should be aimed at protecting people's right to freely consume cannabis and not aimed at targeting anyone. In his view, “the power of the drug trade will not diminish,” just as the 2013 law was proposed: “The big drug traffickers do not make a living from cannabis,” he said. In addition, Radio said that criminal organizations are multifunctional and transforming: “It is not true that they will be weakened.” “And violence will not decrease, for the main reason that cannabis is not associated with violence,” locksmith.
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