Uruguay leader calls Colorado pot law 'fiction'

[Tudo]

Uruguay leader calls Colorado pot law 'fiction'
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<!-- google_ad_section_start --><META content=2014-05-02T19:09:29Z itemprop="datePublished"><META content="Uruguay leader calls Colorado pot law 'fiction'" itemprop="headline"><META content="" itemprop="alternativeHeadline"><META content="" itemprop="image"><META content="MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — President Jose Mujica said Friday that his country's legal marijuana market will be much better than Colorado's, where he says the rules are based on "fiction" and "hypocrisy" because the state loses track of the drug once it's sold and many people fake illnesses to get prescription weed." itemprop="description">



MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — President Jose Mujica said Friday that his country's legal marijuana market will be much better than Colorado's, where he says the rules are based on "fiction" and "hypocrisy" because the state loses track of the drug once it's sold and many people fake illnesses to get prescription weed.
Mujica says this won't be allowed in Uruguay, where the licensed and regulated market will be much less permissive with drug users.
In an exclusive Associated Press interview just before releasing his country's long-awaited marijuana rules, the former leftist guerrilla predicted that many will call him an "old reactionary" once they see the fine print.
"We don't go along with the idea that marijuana is benign, poetic and surrounded by virtues. No addiction is good," he said. "We aren't going to promote smokefests, bohemianism, all this stuff they try to pass off as innocuous when it isn't. They'll label us old reactionaries. But this isn't a policy that seeks to expand marijuana consumption. What it aims to do is keep it all within reason, and not allow it to become an illness."
Uruguay plans to create clones of approved marijuana plants, so that police can test weed possessed by licensed users and ensure that it's bona fide. Possession of marijuana lacking the genetic markers of approved plants will be criminally punished.
"It's a complete fiction what they do in Colorado," Mujica said. "There are places where there are forms already filled out with a doctor's signature. So you go, you say that you need marijuana because your ear hurts, they fill out the form, you prescribe it yourself and with the signature of a doctor. This is brutal hypocrisy."
Mujica spoke with the AP during a lengthy visit to his flower farm at a critical time during his presidency. The development of regulations for the marijuana market Uruguay's congress approved in December has been closely watched, and on May 12 he will meet with President Barack Obama in the White House.
He also spoke about U.S. foreign policy and his willingness to provide refuge in Uruguay to prisoners from the U.S. detention center for terrorism suspects in Guantanamo, Cuba.
http://news.yahoo.com/uruguay-leader-calls-colorado-pot-law-fiction-190523451.html

 

[bombadil.360]

How about that, it was too good to be true...

 

[Jhhnn]

How about that, it was too good to be true...

It remains to be seen how much bullshit Uruguayans are willing to put up with & how much enforcement effort is tied to it.

He needs to keep up a good front, or thinks he does, in order to maintain smooth international relations.

I figure that won't be necessary or even possible by the time 2017 rolls around, the earliest we could likely see any change in US federal policy.

By then, prohibitionists will have no counter for the success of the Colorado experience. Zip, zero, nothing, nada, nyet. It'll be the same in any language.

I'm confident that the Obama Admin views it the same way.

 

[G.O. Joe]

It's not international relations, he couldn't care less or he wouldn't have done this in the first place. Uruguay just isn't a chillum smoking drum circle country.

http://en.mercopress.com/2014/04/25...ut-are-prepared-to-give-it-a-chance-says-poll
Public opinion opposition to the project and later to the bill remains constant, 65% in 2012; 63% in 2013 and 64% last March according to Cifra pollster. But a special work published on Thursday shows that 51% of Uruguayans feel “it's better to make the bill effective to see if it really works, before rejecting it, while 46% clearly want the bill derogated, now!”

Looking closer into the results, Cifra believes that the percentage of interviews contrary to the bill is higher than that of those who demand an immediate repeal of the law and that is because “drugs' trafficking and consumption” has become a major concern for Uruguayans but a “majority is also convinced there are no easy solutions to the problem”.

A significant percentage of Uruguayans believe it is better to test the bill, which does not satisfy, to see if it can improve the current situation, says Cifra.

The new bill sponsored by President Jose Mujica has triggered international and domestic controversy by establishing that the State “will have the control and regulation of the import, export, plantations, harvesting, production, acquisition, storing, trading, distribution and consumption of marihuana and its derivates”.

Mujica has consistently argued that he is looking for an alternative to combat drug trafficking since repression “has become a lost battle in the whole world and has been so for a long time”.

The bill creates the Institute for Regulation and Control of Cannabis, IRCCA, which will be responsible for the registry of those who plant, grow, harvest and consume marihuana. Personal consumption of marihuana has been legal in Uruguay for the last four decades.

Apparently under the new bill, Uruguayans over the age of 18, will be allowed, following a private request to IRCCA, to plant, grow and harvest domestic cannabis or buy up to 40 grams a month in chemist shops. Each home will have up to six cannabis plants and annual production is limited to 480 grams.

Although the price has yet to be agreed, aauthorities have suggested setting the price for marijuana at one dollar per ounce to compete with Paraguayan cannabis that has flooded the black market.

Cannabis clubs will also be allowed with 15 to 45 members and a maximum of 99 plants.

It is strictly banned to smoke pot at the work floor, in health, education and sports places and those who already have cannabis plants will have 180 days to declare them to IRCCA, which will also overview all the stages, from the sowing, growing, harvesting, distribution and sale of the weed.

Any breaking of the rules means fines ranging from the equivalent of 625 to 62.500 dollars, plus temporary closure of the greenhouses and authorized outlets.

The pharmacies can only be supplied by private growers authorized by the government, which will oversee quality and choose varieties. Individuals will also be able to grow up to six plants for personal use.

Uruguay has said it is also considering having marijuana grown on a plot of land controlled by the military to avoid illegal trafficking of the crop. Ten to 20 hectares of marijuana would likely be enough to meet domestic demand, according to preliminary estimates.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...A_RULES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) -- Uruguay's government is still writing the rules for its legal marijuana market, two weeks overdue now, and President Jose Mujica has asked that no details be released until the regulations are published Friday or Monday.

But an official in Uruguay's drug control office told The Associated Press that the rules will limit consumers to buying 10 grams of pot a month, rather than the maximum of 40 grams set by legislators. The official said that is aimed at reducing the illegal resale of marijuana that will be sold by pharmacies.

Registered buyers will get cards linked to an electronic database that will track each user's purchases, but the cards won't have names on them and the records won't reveal identities to pharmacy staff, said the official, who agreed to discuss the shaping of the rules only if not quoted by name.

He said the delay in publishing the rules was partly because Congress didn't address taxing pot sales when it passed the law in December. Officials are now developing a set of fees to avoid giving marijuana an unfair advantage over highly taxed alcohol and cigarette sales, he said.

Another problem has been figuring out how to trace marijuana plants from seed to smoke, which was a key promise made by the law's promoters.

With opinion polls saying most Uruguayans opposed the move to legalize pot, the government pushed the law through Congress by arguing the best way to defeat drug trafficking is to create a regulated marketplace in which licensed and registered citizens can grow, buy, sell and use legal marijuana.

The law's backers said government-approved marijuana plants would have genetic markers and be cloned so licensed products can be identified as legitimate. Growers, sellers and users would be subject to inspection and testing, and anyone caught with illegal strains would be punished.

But exactly how to accomplish this through regulation has proved difficult, the official said.

Uruguay is the first country in the world to attempt to create a nationwide market regulating the cultivation, sale and use of legal marijuana. Once the system launches, registered users should be able to buy their weed in pharmacies, grow as much as six plants per family and harvest 480 grams a year at home, or join cultivation clubs that can have as many as 45 members and 99 plants.

The 10-gram weekly purchase limit is an arbitrary figure, "and no one knows very well where it comes from," said Juan Andres Palese, a co-owner of Urugrow, the country's first store selling tools for growing and using marijuana. "But it's a start, and as such I support it. I think these numbers will get updated later."

 

[Coconutz]

Basically hes saying colorado is trying to cash in and its a joke, then he goes on to say hes creating a marijuana monopoly in his country and hes the shit.
sounds like hes starting a cartel to me

 

[Tudo]

Basically hes saying colorado is trying to cash in and its a joke, then he goes on to say hes creating a marijuana monopoly in his country and hes the shit.
sounds like hes starting a cartel to me

he IS the cartel?

 

[Coconutz]

he IS the cartel?

Well... Technically he'd be the godfather and the government supplying the pharmacy would be the cartel.
Not to mention the whole shady seed biz hes planning on starting. You can only grow his weed and if you get caught with someone elses you face a fine?

 

[Jhhnn]

That sounds great, Joe, but Uruguay just legalized pot, but now the prez wants to step back from that to make it "medical", kinda sorta, even though it's something where people are willing to take a wait & see attitude about it under current statutes.

If they can't figure it out, get it right, then they'll continue to have the same problems associated with imported pot & the narco trafficantes who supply it. That seems to be a big concern for all of 'em, rightfully so. None of this "registered users for medical purposes" routine will solve that problem at all.

El Presidente is taking a big step back from reality if he thinks it will. That, or he sees some personal gain in letting the illegal trafficking continue.

 

[iBogart]

It seems impossible that they can successfully regulate as he intends to. Sounds like a bunch of hype to keep the UN off their back.

 

[maryjaneismyfre]

Has anyone read the universal declaration of human rights by the UN...? So how does my choices of what I put into my body and what mind altering substances I CHOOSE to take NOT relate to my rights to life and liberty and the resulting freedoms? Fuck em.. If I choose to grow strain X and not your Y or plant X and not plant Y. So what.. the choice is my right as is the choice of imbibing whatever the fuck I want. That right is entrenched in international law. If I want to be bohemian, then I will, if I feel like not being tomorrow so be it. F Obama, Mujica and all the other closet dictators.. Suck my

 

[Ruosk]

So, uh, they're going to run expensive and time consuming tests to each and every "suspicious" baggy to confirm the bud is a genetic match to those government clones? Sounds like something that can't actually be enforced but could potentially be useful against those damn "bohemians".

 

[blastfrompast]

So, uh, they're going to run expensive and time consuming tests to each and every "suspicious" baggy to confirm the bud is a genetic match to those government clones? Sounds like something that can't actually be enforced but could potentially be useful against those damn "bohemians".

Yeah I was wondering about this one....I doubt their are field tests for this sort of thing...

Sounds like an excellent opportunity to pull a shakedown on some potheads tho....Have to pay a "fee"/bribe to pass the "test"

 

[theJointedOne]

uruguay og

 

[stasis]

Yeah, I was initially impressed by the legalization in Uruguay. Now, not so much.

 

[gethigh]

yeah we have it way better

 

[satva]

authorities have suggested setting the price for marijuana at one dollar per ounce to compete with Paraguayan cannabis that has flooded the black market.

$1 /ounce that sounds about right - Uraguay smokers should be happy!

Colorado prices are quite a bit higher ~ $150 / ounce medical and $400 / ounce recreational. I don't understand Colorado's pricing difference, probably just greed even considering the extra $42 in taxes on $150 recreational purchase.

 

[MJPassion]

Colorado prices are quite a bit higher ~ $150 / ounce medical and $400 / ounce recreational. I don't understand Colorado's pricing difference, probably just greed even considering the extra $42 in taxes on $150 recreational purchase.

Ridiculous...
A great reason to grow yer wn

 

[Hank Hemp]

He's a old school Lefty who wants to tell you how to live.

 

[foomar]

grow as much as six plants per family and harvest 480 grams a year at home, or join cultivation clubs that can have as many as 45 members and 99 plants.

Looks to be a lot better on the face of it than the crap laws in Canada.

 

[Jhhnn]

authorities have suggested setting the price for marijuana at one dollar per ounce to compete with Paraguayan cannabis that has flooded the black market.

$1 /ounce that sounds about right - Uraguay smokers should be happy!

Colorado prices are quite a bit higher ~ $150 / ounce medical and $400 / ounce recreational. I don't understand Colorado's pricing difference, probably just greed even considering the extra $42 in taxes on $150 recreational purchase.

There's been a scarcity of retail product. Producers were allowed to convert 15% of their med inventory to retail to start out. Actual growing for retail only began Jan 1, so the first harvests are coming in about now. I expect retail prices to plummet sharply once the big producers get going. It's not a product where they can expand distribution to other states, & competition for market share should be intense. Only outfits who are well capitalized & have their shit together will survive the shakeout when it comes.

Vulture capitalists should do well buying up big lots of used equipment cheap (very cheap!) & shipping it to states where MMJ is just coming in.