MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) – Uruguay’s plan to create the world’s first national, government-regulated marketplace for legal pot may be going up in smoke.
Delays in implementing the plan are putting it at risk as polls point to opposition gains in October general elections and show most Uruguayans oppose a legal pot marketplace. Opposition politicians have said they will seek to repeal or modify the legislation, which gives the national government power to oversee the production, sales and consumption of marijuana.
“I am convinced that the current project is never going to be applied,” the principal opposition presidential candidate, Luis Lacalle Pou, told The Associated Press. “The entire project is not workable. The pharmacies don’t want to sell the drug and nobody is going to register as a user, as the law obliges.”
The legislation, which went into effect in May, allows for the growing of pot by licensed individuals, the formation of growers and users clubs, the sale by pharmacies of 40 grams of pot a month to registered users and the tracking of legally grown marijuana through a system of genetic markers of authorized plants.
President Jose Mujica and his Broad Front movement have promoted the plan as a way to deal with rising homicide and crime rates associated with drug trafficking and the increasing use of crack cocaine. In the last 13 years, the homicide rate in Uruguay has increased by 21 percent and the rate of violent robbery by 250 percent. Officials say a legal pot market could provide an alternative to crack and reduce the power of drug gangs.