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Inside Uruguay’s experiment in legalized marijuana Stephanie Nolen Globe and Mail Thursday 25 Sep 2014 This small shop in the heart of the Uruguayan capital is the premiere location for those seeking to grow their own marijuana, and the three young owners cannot import the big, boxy, vinyl grow kits fast enough. But the store is also an informal clearinghouse of information on how to join a “cannabis club,” a meeting point for would-be foreign investors who want in on the new commercial cannabis market opening up here – and the first destination of hopeful tourists from other countries looking to score a bag of weed. (They can’t – under Uruguay’s new law, only citizens can buy, and only from the state.) It makes for a crowded shop. “It’s pretty crazy,” said Juan Manuel Varela, when the last grow kit has been loaded into a customer’s car and he can lock up for a day. Fortunately he’s got a little something to take the edge off. Urugrow, which Mr. Varela helped create, has been around for a couple of years. Until last December, it was a “gardening store,” where the products for sale were all geared for a specific kind of home cultivator, but discretion was required. Then Uruguay became the first country in the world to legalize marijuana and the country’s growers burst out of their brightly lit closets. In complete reverse of the process that recently played out in several U.S. states, and that looms in the offing in Canada, Uruguay’s legalization came from the top. President Jose Mujica pushed it in the face of strong disapproval from a majority of his citizens. He embraced legalization as the bold but obvious best way to neutralize drug traffickers, who had been growing in power in this small country in the south of the continent. But he sent Uruguay into uncharted territory, which lawmakers and enforcement are still muddling through, while their project is watched with a mixture of fascination and alarm by the rest of the world. Mr. Mujica was a socialist guerrilla in his youth, and spent 14 years being tortured in prison for his political convictions, so he wasn’t likely to be dissuaded by the disapproval of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency or the United Nations. And when his own people said they did not favour legalization, he urged them to trust him, and forged ahead. He directed a committee of legislators to study other models for legalization: the cannabis clubs of Barcelona, the cafés of Amsterdam, the homegrown recreational use in Colorado and medical marijuana in the U.S. and Canada. And then, to go further. The law the Mujica administration came up with has three prongs. It legalizes home-growing (each adult who signs up in a national registry can have up to six plants), or growing through a registered club. It makes it legal for a person to purchase up to 40 grams a month of marijuana from the state through a pharmacy for personal consumption. And it legalizes cannabis production for medical and industrial purposes. (Technically, it’s been legal to smoke pot in Uruguay since 1970 – but it wasn’t legal to grow it, or buy and sell it, rendering the old law ridiculous.) “The opposition was saying, ‘Marijuana is very bad for you physically and mentally, and must be banned,’” said Julio Bango, a Socialist Party member of the General Assembly who was one of the authors of the law. “We said, ‘Okay, but then ban alcohol and tobacco.’ We’re not disputing that it’s not beneficial for health, but we’re saying, treat it like alcohol and tobacco.” Given the choice, he would have deregulated completely, handling pot like booze. But he understands the need for this very conservative style of liberalization. “It’s a new idea with the public and it’s a gradual road. The first thing is to show we’re not trying to promote it. Our law exists in a regional and global context, and given that, it’s brave but realistic.” Supply shops in demand Since the first part of that law, for home-growing, went into effect last December, shops selling supplies have sprouted all over the country. At Urugrow, the typical customer is a middle-class man between the ages of 25 and 40. Now that it’s legal, they have more customers over 50 and more women, who today represent about 10 per cent of customers, and turnover at the shop has doubled, Mr. Varela said. “There is way more bureaucracy now, but I’m not living in fear of going to go to jail, so I’ll take it.” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/the-uncharted-territory-of-how-uruguay-legalized-marijuana/article20781037/
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