Uruguay moves to legalize marijuana | Hacker News Reader

Uruguay moves to legalize marijuana

csmonitor.com

178 pointsanigbrowl65 comments

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"

> 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.

Yes, alcohol is freely sold everywhere, the only restriction is for minors (under 18, not 21).

There are worries about discrimination, and pharmacies telling who their customers are (since every sale is registered under your ID).

For comparison, cigarettes and alcohol are anonymous (you might be asked to show an ID, but it's not stored anywhere).

Thanks for the reply.

> Yes, alcohol is freely sold everywhere

Don't stores need licenses to sell alcohol? Or are you comparing it as "any store with a liquor license" vs. "only pharmacies"? I can see that as being a bit restrictive, yeah.

> For comparison, cigarettes and alcohol are anonymous

Right, but that relates to your point about being required to register... I was just asking about concern over the first point (regulation). I agree that the registration isn't optimal.

> Don't stores need licenses to sell alcohol?

Nope, they don't. You don't need a license to sell cigarettes either, both are free to sell here in Uruguay (always for people over 18).

Heck, the government has it's own brands of Whiskey and spirits ! (ANCAP sells those, both under the Ancap brand, and Mac Pay)

http://www.whisky.com.uy/marcas-de-whisky/mac-pay/

The government does want to introduce a license to sell alcohol, and a ban on selling alcohol in stores after 10 pm.

You can currently buy alcohol basically everywhere (supermarkets, stores, gas stations, kiosks), and there's a problem with the ban on underages not being respected.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Curious why you think the only or primary reason for brewing tasty ale is to deceive? There's a lot wrong with this but for one, I'm not talking about Budweiser coming out with a smoother lighter tasting drink. Many craft ales have such strong flavor (without correlation to strong abv necessarily) that make it difficult to drink faster than sipping and in large quantity, unlike the macrobrews that are intended to go down easily with minimal flavor, more for "drunking" than "drinking", an important distinction.

They won't take special, small-batch items

Don't know about how it works in general, but that definitely isn't true in Sweden. Individual stores must carry a certain 'standard' stock, but beyond that they are free to stock whatever products they want in, and it's not uncommon to see small orders of only a half dozen bottles of something obscure. And even if your local store doesn't stock some particular thing you want, they will always be happy to try to order a couple of bottles for you.

Ah so is it partially privatized then? I was using Canada as an example, though the particulars vary by region there. Fortunately they are moving more and more toward privatized liquor sales, giving breweries more freedom.

Alcohol sale to consumers is 100% run by the government with strict guidelines and pricing controls and with no sign of privatization in sight. However each store has a certain amount of autonomy as to what they carry.

Alcohol distribution to the stores however is largely privatized. So anybody is free to set up a company that imports and distributes alcoholic beverages. But they can only sell to bars, restaurants or the government run alcohol stores.

Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and apparently some parts of Canada have government owned shops. I guess it's all to inflate the price to the ridicule in an attempt to reduce the consumption. Can't blame them, they do indeed drink a lot.

Speaking only for Sweden, it's not simply that they raise prices, it's more that they flatten them. So a $10 bottle of Vodka will cost you $35, but a $120 bottle of whisky might cost you $80. For example I was very surprised when I was in England a few years ago and found that certain British ales I enjoy where cheaper in the Swedish government monopoly shop than in the English supermarket.

Uruguayan here.

The state has multiple monopolies on products including refining gas (there is one price for gas all over the country and its set by government), telecommunications (all phone and internet goes through Antel the government agency), water (OSE) along with a couple of others.

I think the main population concern is what this will mean for the price, quantity and quality of the product given that most of the other monopolies are known for their mediocre service, squandering of resources and mild internal corruption. I say mild because in comparison to the rest of South America Uruguay has the lowest corruption level but there is still clear favoritism within government agencies, very lazy workers (they can't get fired). The main argument against the current legislation is that allowing private companies to produce the product (like tobacco) and applying high taxes would be way more efficient and that there is little belief that the government could efficiently pull off this operation.

According to your depiction of Uruguayan parties the "Partido Nacional" is more centrist than the "Patido Colorado". I'm not sure if I agree with that.

Both are right-wing, and both contain centrist and more right-wing factions, but I do believe the Partido Colorado is more right wing.

It's not always a bad thing, I for instance would like a harder stance on security. But they do have some very troubling individuals, and my family knows Dr. Pedro Bordaberry (the son of the one that led to the dictatorship, and current leader of the party) extremely well, and he is extremely right wing.

My girlfriend was secretary of one of the sectors of the Partido Nacional, so I also know a lot of people there, and in my opinion they're slightly more centrist, but (also strictly IMO) they still have a huge problem with cronyism and corruption, not that the governing party doesn't, but they haven't managed to purge that yet.

I see your point. However I think that historically "Partido Nacional" is far more linked with typical right wing ideals and stereotypes. Anyway, I think we aren't adding much value with a political discussion about Uruguay here. I really liked your summary about the topic.

I think in general Uruguay has less extremes overall than american political parties. Overall Uruguay is social democratic country and has been that way since the end of the dictatorships (which were indeed run by the colorado party). I would say all parties find themselves either center right or center left, calling any of them right wing or left wing compared to the extremism we see in the US seems a tad off.

When you say extremism in the US do you mean regarding social or economic policies?

(looking at things from the UK)

today I would say both. Specially the republican party that has started catering to the extreme right wing conservatives. Having lived most of my life in Uruguay and only moved to the US 10 years ago I am amazed on how quickly the political system here has devolved towards the extremes.

I'm from Puerto Rico, supporter of the Sovereign Free Associated State, can you reference those two alternative papers you've mentioned? It gets harder and harder to find straight policy files. For example South Korea's recently combined new economic policies for economic development, they're mostly in bits and pieces throughout blogs.

I'll have to dig around, I had a hard time finding the text voted today, I believe it's this one

http://www.espectador.com/documentos/Marihuana.pdf

I'll ask my representative for the alternative text from my party, but I don't think I'll be able to get the other one.

They're bills, not scientific studies, I don't know if that's what you wanted :) .

Thanks, the Sunlight Foundation doesn't curate these things :-/.

Maybe this could help http://www.parlamento.gub.uy/repartidos/AccesoRepartidos.asp...

Its more 'official'

Edit: I'm not 100% sure this is what was efectively voted

Thanks, got the PDF, this was something like an open letter.

40g a month is a lot more than I thought that a government would go for. 28g is a ounce.

It's troubling probably because possession above that amount means you're a dealer or something along those lines - whatever is the current law. It means you can't have a stockpile of more than a month's worth.

40 grams per month is slightly more than one joint a day. Some people consume more than that, some less, but 40 grams a month is nowhere near the amount held by dealers.

That's some monster joints you roll there. For Dutch cannabis you would easily roll three joints out of a gram that would be enough for anyone I know.

In systems where production is allowed, cannabis sativa is bred to be much higher potency and quality than what is available on most underground markets across the world. While 40 grams is obviously much less than what is held by dealers, it is more than what even heavy users of high-quality marijuana consume over a month. With THC content of some Dutch varieties now approaching 15% (although the content of generally available products in coffee shops has trended slightly downward over the last few years), consuming a gram a day is in the 'knocked out for 12 of 14 waking hours' territory.

(note: not a user, Netherlands-living amateur drug policy and enforcement researcher)

The fallacy that modern cannabis is more potent now than it was in the 1960's is based on flawed methodology.

In the 1960's cannabis researchers didn't have access to the old world drug varieties found in Nepal, Tibet, Afghanistan, et al. The cannabis which was widely available in the 1960's was mostly low grade hemp type varieties which found its way to the "New World" by way of Spanish mariners who brought cannabis sativa varieties to Mexico for use in ship's riggings and sails.

The common misconception that "hemp" contains no psychoactive compounds, or negligible amounts of it, is patently false, as those Mexican progeny of the old Spanish strains of cannabis were quite popular among the counter-cultural hippies of the 1960's and 70's.

This is not meant to infer that all hemp varieties are good sources of THC, etc, but is indicative of the variations of genetic expression found within cannabis, be it cannabis indica, cannabis ruderalis, and cannabis sativa.

Any stoner can tell you that cannabis sativa has the ability to impart euphoria, much the same as the other two main strains of cannabis.

These "Old World" varieties, predominantly Cannabis Indica, have been continuously cultivated to produce hashish for millenia, and as natural selection shows, they were able to selectively cultivate increasingly potent varieties to get to the point where the varieties they have been growing are the source of the most potent genetics found in cannabis today.

Of further note is the supposition that consuming one gram of cannabis per day is enough to render unconsciousness for the greater part of a 24 hour period. This is nothing other than hyperbole, as I can consume 1 gram, or more, of high quality hashish per day while still maintaining my faculties and simultaneously easing my medical conditions, and not many cannabis varieties are as potent as top grade hashish.

Those 15% "Dutch" varieties are not of "Dutch" origin, they are indubitably of Himalayan origin, and hybridized by Dutch growers.

(Hawai'i resident here, thankful for medical cannabis laws)

I'm not talking about levels from the 1960's, an era so long ago that it's hardly relevant for today's practices or policy. What I'm talking about is the last 2 decades or so, a time over which use has spread further than it ever has (note: I don't make any moral judgements on that, I'm just observing), and over which cannabis production has become so far developed that the advances over that time dwarf the progress that was made over the millennia before it.

There is hard evidence that THC content (to use that as 'the' indicator for cannabis potency, which is an internationally accepted practice) has risen steadily from the mid-1990's, with a topping off in the last few years at around 15-20 % for high-potency Dutch weed varieties, and 5-7 % for imported (international) varieties. See e.g. [1] (from Wikipedia) and [2] (in Dutch) from the Dutch agency who monitors exactly this. There is little reason to believe that THC content across the world in places where they import from the same places as Dutch import would be different from the content measured in the Netherlands; international measurements confirm this hypothesis.

I know it is popular amongst 'stoners' to deny that THC content has risen, mostly because it causes marijuana to be reclassified as a more 'dangerous' (therefore: punished harsher) drug as it once was in some places. It's not because something has undesirable (for you) policy implications, that it's not true. You (not specifically 'you you', but the 'cannabis always had high THC / the Indians did it 1000 years ago' crowd) have elaborate theories but suspiciously little data on their claims. Anecdotes by 'stoners' don't make accounts of the truth, the scientific method does.

Claiming that high-potency cannabis varieties are 'just modified varieties that existed for 1000's of years' is true in the same sense that saying a Ferrari is just a modified version of a Model T. It evolved from the same thing, but the differences in potency, ease of use, yield and ease of growing under clandestine circumstances are vast. I'm not using 'Dutch' in the nationalistic 'look at how awesome we are' sense (I'm not even Dutch), I use it in the internationally commonly accepted parlance meaning 'purified by high-tech and directed selection into a product that has no equal in the world'. There is a reason Dutch users look with a mix of amusement and pity at Americans who fill a whole joint with pure Mexican low-grade cannabis and still don't get the same effects as a Dutch joint that contains mostly tobacco and only a relatively low amount of cannabis.

Lastly, I'm not using 'knocked out' in the regular (meaning 'unconscious') sense, but in the drug-using sense, i.e. Cheech & Chong style stonedness. Of course, it's true that different users have different tolerance levels, and that long-time users do build tolerance, but consuming 1 gram of high-quality Dutch marijuana is not 'recreational' use; if I were to make an analogy with alcohol, it's similar to a wild night out binge drinking, not 'sipping a glass of wine on a summer evening'. You say you're using 'high quality' but without numbers, it's impossible to gauge how 'high quality' it really is (in fact, if your hash is similar to other hash world wide, it's roughly the same as the average Dutch marijuana at around 15-20 % THC; for comparison, hash made from average-grade Dutch cannabis varieties ('average-grade Dutch' meaning 'still better than the best international varieties') varies between 20 and 40 (!) percent THC content, approaching THC levels of cannabis oil, which has always been classified as a hard drug, even in the Netherlands).

To frame the discussion further, I'm pro legalisation, and against the current direction in the Netherlands to further clamp down on coffee shops, selling to foreigners, prohibiting psylocybin mushrooms etc. I have at least 10 coffee shops within walking distance from my house, I pass by some every day while walking my kids to day care, and I'm a first-hand witness of the negative effects in terms of nuisance and street crime that the recent curbing of sales to international buyers has brought. I'm as much in the pro-lax-drug-policies as you can be without being an anarchist, but denying that THC content and marijuana potency has risen over the last decades is plain self-delusion.

[1] http://books.google.nl/books?id=mxP_duKXb7QC&pg=PA14&redir_e... [2] http://www.trimbos.nl/webwinkel/productoverzicht-webwinkel/a...

Look into the potency of genuine Nepalese hashish. Have a look in one or two of those coffee shops and ask about Nepalese hashish - the real stuff, I'm sure that you'll find it to be on par with the high grade Dutch hashish of which you speak.

Valid scientific study of Nepali cannabis and hashish are hard to find, and all I have is anecdotal evidence, which is of little use here, but Nepalese cannabis is where we got our most potent genetics, and we (here in Hawaii) had this variety since the late 1970's.

Your idea of American cannabis is not applicable to the top grades grown by the best growers here in Hawaii.

That our laws are more restrictive than those of the Netherlands is one reason that scientific evidence supports your claims, and is why I have only anecdotal evidence. It's been illegal here for only a relatively short time as compared to the Netherlands.

I have acquired (20+ years ago) some of the best seeds from Amsterdam, and it was not up to the level of Nepalese, or Tibetan.

THC is only one of the psychoactive ingredients in cannabis, and to only list that one ingredient while ignoring the others is one of the same mistakes made by pharmaceutical labs in their quest to somehow profit from cannabinoids. Especially since indica varieties are high in CBD as well as CBN and THC.

The chart listing seized cannabis potency fails to note the origins of the seized drug, and mentions indoor cultivation while failing to consider genetics. Not much Nepali or Tibetan is seized compared to what is seized coming into the USA from Mexico.

The second link makes no mention of Nepalese potency.

Ask Arjan (The Greenhouse) about Nepali genetics, as I'm certain that he is quite familiar with this subject.

But enough of all that, time for a funny story. I visited my sister in Oregon back in 1981, and I brought some of my best Hawaii grown (by myself) for personal consumption, and found out that my brother in law was a pot smoker so I broke out my stash to share. Well, both he and my sister could only handle a few puffs before they left me to finish what I had rolled. The next day my sister accused me of "lacing" the joint with something, which I vehemently denied. (I don't use any other drugs, excluding alcohol) She told me that "no weed can get you that high, you had to have put something in it..."

Thank you for you comments, as they are quite informative and I'm sure there is validity in them, and I do tend to be a bit prejudiced towards my favored varieties.

Aloha!

"There will be a monthly limit of 40 grams per person and all consumers will have to register."

Does your government limit the amount of alcohol you can purchase per month and do you have to register to buy said alcohol? Because if not, that's rather ridiculous. I personally would not want to be on any sort of registry like that.

No, they don't, there are no alcohol licenses or registers or anything.

Stores don't need licenses to sell alcohol either.

We have the dubious record of being the biggest per capita consumers of Whiskey

http://elobservador.com.uy/noticia/256478/uruguay-primero-en...

I admire the progress your country has made thus far, but it seems so silly to limit the quantity you can buy. Especially considering you can overdose on alcohol and kill yourself, where you can't with marijuana.

Maybe it's to avoid foreign gangs buying up lots of legal weed and shipping it out of country.

You really think gangs will buy legal weed, including all the taxes?

They surely will because even with taxes it will be order of magnitudes cheaper than illegal one.

No, it's not. Example: Netherlands. Illegal weed is way, way cheaper than the one you can buy in any coffeeshop.

This is being discussed right now here in Uruguay. The price government is thinking is in the U$ 2 or 3 range for a gram, which is apparently higher than the black market.

It's still cheap. In the Netherlands prices are between 5€ and 11€ per gram.

> My party decided not to vote the whole bill, but only some parts

how does this work? if some parts get enough votes they are turned into law, but the rest of the bill scrapped?

I'm not sure how it works, sorry. I think it's more a political statement, and paving the way for a new bill that includes those.

Were any details given about growing it for your own use?

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...

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...

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?

It seems obvious that if drugs such as cannabis are held to the same standard as decidedly more deadly, legal, drugs such as tobacco and alcohol, then the accompanying crime statistics are bound to be less.

Pot heads aren't known for their violent tendencies, as compared to alcoholics.

Anytime you make something that people like to do legal, crime will go down as those people aren't criminals anymore. And a lot of people do weed. It's directly causal. More importantly, you destroy a huge profit center for organized crime, weed is one of the big cash crops.

Making the use of marijuana legal means that there is no longer the crime of 'using marijuana'. You can't get a more direct causal link than that.

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)

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

Looks like you got that reversed

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

Amsterdam has its own problems namely hordes of drunk and high people from UK and US being loud and obnoxious. As a person who drives through the Netherlands sometimes, if you just want to chill out and smoke a nice joint in the park I recommend Eindhoven.

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.

Uruguay already benefits a lot from being gay-friendly, we get lots of cruises. I hope this will give a similar boost :)

Same-sex marriage became legal today, actually :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Uruguay

Edit: August 5, sorry, still, it's very close !

Only uruguayans are allowed to buy it.

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.

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.

in all reporting I saw it was stated that it was for uruguayans only(although it's weird too because then will natives resell to travellers?), for Amsterdan I've always heard that tourists are allowed to buy it in one way or another at the bars or wathever it's called... still, I think the parent post is irrelevant as it takes focus out of the issue that the `war on drugs` is bad for everyone, like legalization would only serve to benefit gringoes looking for a place to party or stoners or wathever, it brings moral judgement.

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.

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