

Uruguay moves to legalize marijuana - anigbrowl
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2013/0801/Global-trendsetter-Uruguay-moves-to-legalize-marijuana

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GFischer
Well, I'm from Uruguay, so I'll be glad to answer any questions on the subject
:)

The bill was proposed by the governing left wing Broad Front coalition, and
voted by all their congressmen.

While the vote appears close, there was more consensus than is shown.

My party (Partido Independiente, the smallest of the four represented) decided
not to vote the whole bill, but only some parts, because they're for
legalization, but against some of the particulars of the bill.

The most troubling aspects of the bill are:

\- The state will license and regulate private cannabis farms and then sell
the marijuana at pharmacies.

\- There will be a monthly limit of 40 grams per person and

\- all consumers will have to register.

My representative, Dr. Daniel Radío (a medical doctor), had presented an
alternative bill, and so had Dr. Lacalle Pou (a lawyer) from the major
opposition party Partido Nacional.

The other big opposing party, Partido Colorado, is strongly against
legalization, which makes sense since it mostly represents right-wing /
military types and the elderly.

For a quick summary of the political positions:

Broad Front - Left wing - more akin to Democrats in U.S. (but way more left
wing). They include all the spectrum from the former left wing guerrillas,
communists, european-style socialists, etc.

Partido Nacional / "Blancos" \- Right wing - more akin to Republicans, but
pretty centrist overall. Hit very hard by corruption when they formed
government.

Partido Colorado - Right wing - akin to Republicans, include most extreme
right wing types. Their government led to the military dictatorship.

Partido Independiente - tries to be moderate left wing.

There are an estimate 180.000 consumers of marijuana in my country, about 5%
of the population.

Edit: one of the main criticisms was about self cultivated marijuana, which
was finally contemplated in the bill.

President Mujica (a very colorful character) said this:

"We are not going to say that weed is good. What happens is, consumers don't
give a damn about our advice, but we won't leave them stranded because of
that. And they like the adventure of buying from the drug dealer around here
and there, because it is illegal. And while it's clandestine, you can smell
marijuana around in many places"

"Nosotros nos vamos a decir que la maruja es buena. Lo que pasa es que los que
consumen no dan bola a los consejos y no por ello hay que dejarlos en banda. Y
están atrás de la aventura de comprarle al narcotraficante por aquí y por allá
porque es clandestino. Y aunque es clandestino el olor se siente por muchas
partes"

~~~
md224
> The state will license and regulate private cannabis farms and then sell the
> marijuana at pharmacies

Curious why this is troubling... I can understand arguments for limiting
government regulation, but I'm okay with cannabis being regulated much like
alcohol is. Does this go beyond that? I don't have much knowledge of the inner
workings of alcohol regulation, so it's hard for me to compare.

~~~
JoshTriplett
The phrasing suggests that the state does the actual selling, which seems
fundamentally broken. Regulate, sure, but don't become part of the market
you're regulating.

~~~
plorkyeran
That's how it works for alcohol in several countries, and while I don't think
any of them have managed to show any actual benefits from doing it that way,
it's also not a total disaster.

~~~
wahnfrieden
It's awful for beer, for one example. It means that breweries can only produce
things for mass markets. Governments demand a base amount of each single item
so that they can create and meet demands. They won't take special, small-batch
items, because they're looking to stock shelves all over. This drastically
alters what breweries are able to experiment with (if at all).

If you view marijuana as a commodity item, then maybe government sale makes
sense. You could view ale the same way, but it'd be an unfortunately
shortsighted judgment.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Many people love nice ales, wines or whiskeys, but the bottom line is - all of
them are meant to intoxicate you. Therefore, I would be a bit dubious whether
it is really ethical to make something seem less dangerous. It's just like
selling chocolate cigarettes to children, surely it builds some sort of mental
image of cigarettes being good.

~~~
phaemon
The major difference between selling chocolate cigarettes to children and
selling me an interesting tasting ale, is that I am not a child. I am more
capable than _you_ are of deciding what is best for me.

------
D9u
This is a good start.

By removing the profit motive from cannabis production it helps to reduce
cartel receipts, helps to reduce smuggling, and separates cannabis from other,
truly harmful, drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamines, and heroin.

That so many US states have already made provisions to either decriminalize
medical use, and or recreational use, by individuals, serves to illustrate
that cannabis is nowhere near as dangerous as governments have attempted to
portray cannabis as being.

There is absolutely no reason for the DEA to classify cannabis as a Schedule
One drug when legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are responsible for an
exponentially greater amount of negative social impacts when compared with
cannabis.

Case in point?

Amsterdam.

Just look at the statistics regarding "hard" drug use in the Netherlands, as
well as incarceration rates, and homicide rates.

[http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/netherlands_v_us#sthash.ta7j...](http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/netherlands_v_us#sthash.ta7j89cA.dpbs)

~~~
qwertzlcoatl
I remember the Netherlands had so few criminals that it had to shut down
several prisons and lay off hundreds of staff members and started importing
criminals from other countries like Belgium on a contract basis because of the
lack of people to incarcerate. [1]

This is the country where you could just drive into its capital and buy every
strain of cannabis you can possibly imagine and different strains of
psilocybin magic mushrooms without so much as a howdy and an ID if you looked
younger than 18.

[1]
[http://vorige.nrc.nl/international/article2246821.ece/Nether...](http://vorige.nrc.nl/international/article2246821.ece/Netherlands_to_close_prisons_for_lack_of_criminals)

~~~
eshvk
I am not clear how there is a causal link between the two. Are you saying that
legal weed/shrooms causes crime to go down? Or are you merely pointing a
correlation?

~~~
roel_v
It's quite obvious that when you decriminalize something, the crime rate will
go down, since the people doing that thing are not criminals any more. (n / m)
< (n - 1) / m.

But even apart from that (because it's a cooking-the-books level trick,
really), decriminalization of drug use has other effects that lower crime
rates. For example: keeping up a heroin habit is hard when you need to pay
black market rates (€100 / $150 per day). So often, these people need to
resort to burglary, robberies or prostitution. Regulating the market drives
the prices way down (you could have retail prices for a brick of coke that are
the same as that of a package of coffee if you'd let the market work
unrestrained), which causes people to not have to resort to crime to fund
their habits.

(note: not advocating unregulated heroin or cocaine markets, just stating the
obvious socio-economic implications of prices within the bounds of
affordability for regular people with a regular job, leaving aside their
ability to do said job)

~~~
tincholio
> (n / m) < (n - 1) / m.

Looks like you got that reversed

~~~
roel_v
Whoops you're right - I meant (n - 1) / m < (n / m).

------
supervillain
Legalizing Marijuana is one of the sureshot way to boost the economy of any
country (poor, third world, middle and rich) through tourism, travel/leisure,
business commerce and export.

~~~
Buzaga
Only uruguayans are allowed to buy it.

~~~
jlgreco
If my understanding is correct (and it very well may not be), it is similar in
Amsterdam; tourists have more restrictions than locals. Their laws still seem
to benefit their tourism though.

~~~
dep_b
Tourists do not have more restrictions to buy it in Amsterdam. They just
banned it for foreigners in the south because that is close to France and
France has a drug problem. I bet their country is completely addict free by
now.

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andyhmltn
I'm still perplexed as to why it's not already legal in most places. Of course
it's all down to money and lobbying. I wouldn't mind if it was illegal if we
weren't allowed to buy tobacco & alcohol either. Both of which are far more
detrimental to your health.

