Uruguay Becomes First Country In World To Fully Legalize Cannabis

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Uruguay’s bold move does much more than just follow in the footsteps of Colorado and Washington state, which last November became the first political jurisdictions in the world to approve the legalization of marijuana.
It provides, significantly, a model for how to engage in debate over marijuana policy in a mature and responsible way.  When President Mujica first issued his proposal last June, he made clear that he welcomed vigorous debate over both its merits and the particulars.  International experts were invited from abroad for intensive discussions with people from all walks of civil society and government.  A range of specific proposals were considered, all with an eye toward transforming an illegal industry into a legal one to better protect public safety and health.  Political rhetoric and grandstanding permeated the debate, as would be expected in any vibrant democratic process, but substantive issues dominated.

The bill passed on Wednesday effectively integrates elements of Colorado’s and Washington’s laws with innovations from Europe and provisions unique to Uruguay.  Adults are permitted to cultivate up to six plants; cooperatives can provide marijuana for a limited number of members; and pharmacies can sell it.  Sales to minors, driving under the influence and all forms of advertising are prohibited.  This new model will be of great interest to advocates and legislators in other countries, and of course in the growing number of U.S. states in which a majority of citizens now favor legalizing marijuana.

President Mujica is not the only Latin American leader to demonstrate courage in calling for alternatives to the drug war.  Presidents Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala have boldly demanded that legalization, decriminalization and other alternatives to ineffective, costly and destructive prohibitionist drug policies be considered.  More recently, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza has catapulted regional discussion of drug policy to an intellectual level unprecedented among multilateral organizations.  But President Mujica’s proposal is unique in changing not just public debate but also actual laws and policies.

All this serves as a wake-up call for Europe, which was at the forefront of global drug policy reform in the latter part of the 20th century but has now been leapfrogged by developments in the Americas. Serious proposals for legal regulation of marijuana are proliferating in countries like Switzerland, Spain, the Czech Republic, Denmark and the Netherlands.  And in Morocco, long one of the world’s leading producers of marijuana, legalization proposals are now being taken seriously by the national government.

So who’s next?  In the U.S., numerous states are likely to legalize marijuana in coming years, with Oregon perhaps first in line.  In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems like a throwback to the drug war fanatics who dominated U.S. drug policy in the 1980s and 1990s, but both opposition parties seem ready to legalize marijuana once they regain power. And I’d keep my eye on the Dutch, who thirty-plus years ago pioneered the legal regulation of retail sales of marijuana through the “coffeeshop” system, and who may now be inspired by Colorado, Washington and Uruguay to fully legalize and regulate the industry.

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