MONTEVIDEO, (Reuters) – Uruguay is struggling to roll out the commercial production and sale of marijuana and its ground-breaking experiment could be dropped or watered down if an opposition candidate wins this month’s presidential election.
The South American country is the world’s first to permit the cultivation, distribution and use of marijuana, aiming to wrest control of the trade from drug gangs while at the same regulating and even taxing its consumption.
The reform is being followed closely across Latin America where the legalization or decriminalization of some narcotics is increasingly viewed as a better way to end the violence spawned by drug trafficking than the U.S.-led “war on drugs”.
But first Uruguay needs to work out how to ensure criminal gangs do not finance producers, how to regulate the supply and quality of locally produced marijuana, and how to satisfy neighboring states that legally grown dope will not be sold illegally on their streets.
The government has missed its own deadlines in implementing the changes that were passed into law last December.
“We’ve been working on this since the very beginning, since the first day. But I just don’t know if we’ll manage it “ said one government source familiar with the legalization program.
Sebastian Sabini, a lawmaker of the ruling coalition who put forward the law, said its implementation required the creation of institutions that existed nowhere else.
The plan to start selling marijuana in pharmacies late this year looks unlikely as the government is still tendering cultivation licenses and identifying where seeds can be purchased from.
Given the delays, leftist President Jose Mujica now faces a race against time to push through the changes before the country’s next leader takes office in March.
Voters go to the polls to elect a new president on Oct 26. Mujica, a 79-year old ex-guerilla, is constitutionally barred from running for a second consecutive term.
The candidate for the left-wing Frente Amplio (“Broad Front”) ruling coalition, Tabare Vazquez, has endorsed the marijuana law, though he is less enthusiastic about it than Mujica.
Vazquez’s main opponent in the tight race, Luis Lacalle Pou of the centrist National Party, endorsed a bill in 2010 that would have allowed personal cultivation of marijuana but he says the current reform is “inapplicable in reality”.
“I am against the state producing and selling drugs and earning money with this,” he said.
Lacalle Pou, who is the son of a previous president, told TV station Canal 10 the law would be difficult to implement, adding it meant the state “abandons its role of protecting public health and trying to prevent addictions”.
If Lacalle Pou wins and the marijuana law has not been rolled out, he could simply shelve the project. Otherwise, he would have to pass a new bill overturning it.
EDGY SMOKERS
The Netherlands permits the sale of marijuana in “coffee shops”, Canada allows terminally ill patients to grow and smoke their own marijuana and the U.S. states of Washington and Colorado have legalized its cultivation and consumption but only Uruguay has passed legislation to allow commercial production.
Uruguay is one of Latin America’s most liberal societies and smoking marijuana has been legal here since 1998.
Even so, opinion polls ahead of the election have shown almost two out of three Uruguayans disapprove of the state playing the role of narcotics regulator.
Mujica’s critics say his liberal policies, which also include the legalization of abortion and gay marriage, have often been more widely acclaimed abroad than at home.