Subscribe to Receive the Daily Report

Tuesday, April 19th, 2016

Uruguay to test world’s first state-commissioned recreational cannabis

Author:     Alex Marshall
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Monday 18 April 2016 08.20 EDT
 Link: Uruguay to test world’s first state-commissioned recreational cannabis
Stephan:   If you were reading SR in 2013, and an amazing number of you were, you will remember the stories I did on the radical course shift taken by Uruguay in relation to drugs. This has not been an easy change for a conservative Catholic culture and government, and it has taken longer than anyone thought it would, but it is happening, and here is the latest. Uruguay's decision to get the government into the marijuana business, I see, as an example of an unusual but wellness-oriented  approach to an essentially universal social issue. Just as I look at social outcome data of states, I search it out about countries around the world.  I predict that Uruguay in a few years will report that their approach is cheaper, more efficient, more effective, more enduring, and more productive of wellness than the policies that proceeded the present approach.
Uruguay marijuana

Uruguay during 2013 campaign Credit: AFP

For a Latin American narcotics kingpin, Guillermo Delmonte cuts a low key figure. The 29-year-old Uruguayan has never smoked cannabis in his life. He’s never smoked a cigarette either, and he barely drinks. When asked if he has any vices, he has to pause to think. “I’m addicted to orange juice. Perhaps,” he eventually says with a bemused laugh.

Sitting in his minimalist office overlooking Montevideo’s main square, and wearing an open-necked Ralph Lauren shirt and expensive blue jeans, he looks every bit the fitness-obsessed executive.

But as the United Nations prepares to discuss its failed “war on drugs” in New York this week, Delmonte is under intense scrutiny as the CEO of International Cannabis Corp, one of two firms now legally growing dope on behalf of the Uruguayan government.

At a small farm just down the road from Libertad prison, an hour’s drive from the capital Montevideo, Delmonte’s company has 3,000 marijuana plants growing under lights and constant police guard. It is expecting to add at least […]

Read the Full Article