Two-and-a-half cheers for Uruguay

From the BBC:


If the Senate approves..., as is expected, Uruguay would become the first country in the world to regulate cannabis production, guarantee its quality, set its price and tax the revenues. It would also allow people to grow up to six plants of cannabis in their homes*.

The government says the aim is to stop people going to buy cannabis from drug traffickers and to put an end to a recent wave of violent crime associated with illegal drugs. In a BBC interview last year, President Jose Mujica said: "We are not so much worried about the drugs. What really worries us is drug trafficking."

... According to recent opinion polls, Uruguayans have shown to be more open to decriminalising abortion and legalising same-sex marriage than they are towards this new cannabis bill. At least two-thirds of the population are against the legalisation of marijuana, the latest poll suggests.

* That seems a bit stingy and what is not mentioned in that otherwise cheering article is that people will be restricted to buying 40 grams per month from official government shops, which a) doesn't sound like very much to me, and b) how are they going to police it anyway? The mind boggles.

My first thought is that people who want to smoke more than that without resorting to non-government sources will just ask non-smoking friends and neighbours to buy some for them, which gets us straight back to illegal dealing.

But I suppose they have to take into account that two-thirds of their voters oppose the idea, so they can't go too far too fast.

Outbreak of common sense in Uruguay

From The Daily Mail:

Uruguay could become the first country in the world to sell marijuana to its citizens as it attempts to fight a growing crime problem.

Under the plan, only the government would be allowed to sell marijuana to adults who have registered on a government database - letting officials keep track of their purchases over time.

Minister of Defense Eleuterio Fernandez Huidobro said the measure aims to weaken crime in the country by removing profits from drug dealers and diverting users from harder drugs.

I don't like the bit about the database, and by and large, cannabis is the sort of thing which can be best grown or imported and sold privately, but it's a huge leap in the right direction.

Having set a benchmark price (something below current street prices), the government would then ideally re-privatise the whole thing and levy taxes on producers to mop up the super-profits; the main thing is that the tax is not so high as to make illicit/unlicensed supply worthwhile on a large scale.