URUGUAY/FILE: Senate's Health Commission in Uruguay passes bill to regulate legal marijuana use

Record ID: 351593

  • Title: URUGUAY/FILE: Senate's Health Commission in Uruguay passes bill to regulate legal marijuana use
  • Date: 27th November 2013
  • Summary: MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SENATE'S HEALTH COMMISSION
  • Embargoed: 12th December 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Uruguay
  • Country: Uruguay
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAAX8BC622I1ZV2AXM923LPD3UG
  • Story Text: The Senate's Health Commission in Uruguay on Tuesday (November 26) passed a bill to allow the legalization and regulation of marijuana in the South American country.
    The bill would legalize the cultivation and sale of marijuana and is backed by Uruguay's leftist President Jose Mujica.
    It was passed in the lower chamber of Congress over the summer and is expected to come up for a vote in the Senate soon.
    Senator Luis Gallo is a member of the Health Commission and represents the leftist coalition Frente Amplio. He defended the bill and said voting by the full Senate would probably take place on December 10.

    "We believe this project will definitely enter its final stage and in the month of March or April, once regulated, this project will become definitely become law," he said.
    The legislation would establish a National Cannabis Institute to control the drug's production and distribution, impose sanctions on rule-breakers and design educational policies to warn about the risks of marijuana use.
    However, despite the government's strong support, the bill remains controversial and has sizeable opposition in the Senate.
    Formerly the minister of health, Senator Alfredo Solari now heads the Health Commission in the Senate and says the legislation is unconstitutional.

    "I think it was a lamentable vote. The project has notable unconstitutional natures in three different aspects. It invades the autonomy of the Codicen (Central Directive Council which is the guiding body of the ANEP, the public education system in Uruguay). That was said by Senator Conde (Senator Roberto Conde from the leftist Frente Amplio). It violates article 229 of the Constitution because it establishes a new institute in the period prior to the elections and lastly in goes against public health which is stated in article 44 of the Constitution."
    The bill creates a government body to regulate legal sales and public smoking clubs and to monitor marijuana consumption for Uruguayans.
    Legislation would also allow individuals to grow as much as 480 grams (about 17 ounces) of marijuana for personal consumption. Marijuana cooperatives, with no more than 45 members, will be permitted to grow just over two plants per member.
    Gallo, said the government body would make sure the bill is properly implemented.

    "With regards to article 10, which has to do with the autonomy of the ANEP (the public education system in Uruguay), in the design of curricular policies in education, from our point of view it's excused because the article mentions the ANEP would regulate the operation (of the bill) and would be very careful that this autonomy is not affected," he said.
    Critics say it would lure people to harder drugs and create problems for Latin American countries that have battled drug-related violence, like Colombia and Mexico.
    Solari said it was an unfortunate strategy to battle drug trafficking and had not considered Uruguay's youth.

    "I think it is very lamentable that it was not re-thought, the orientation to battle drug trafficking we all share was not re-evaluated, without damaging the health of the population, without fundamentally damaging the health of the teenagers and children because this will have a repercussion in the learning process. A negative and very lamentable repercussion in a system which is already very deteriorated," he said.
    The bill was originally put forward by the government about a year and a half ago.
    According to a September FACTUM pull, 29 percent of Uruguayans support the bill while 63 percent oppose it.
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