Today Uruguay begins selling state marijuana in pharmacies

Almost 5,000 people have registered in the mandatory register of consumers and will be able to acquire a maximum of 40 grams a month to 1.12 euros a gram.

With the beginning of the sale in pharmacies, the most interesting phase of marijuana legalization in Uruguay has arrived, a unique process in the world that includes both the production and the sale of cannabis. Only 16 pharmacies have agreed to sell these small 40 gram sachets, but after so many years of delay (the law was voted in 2013), the start of the operation is a success for the promoters of the initiative.

The marijuana that reaches pharmacies is not any marijuana, but the result of an elaborate internal pact (many Uruguayans are opposed to the sale) and external, since Uruguay continues under the condemnation of the UN for its legalization process. And science has had to intervene in the process. Thus, the substance has a low effect, with a percentage of between 2% and 4% of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive element of cannabis. The average usually exceeds 3%, which has run the information that pharmacy marijuana "does not catch anything."

In addition, the varieties and their cultivation are unique and this will avoid traffic to neighboring countries. The drug will be easily recognizable and, therefore, possible traffickers easier to stop.

Cultivated on grounds guarded by the Army (and closed to press access), the contents of the envelopes that are available in pharmacies are transported with the maximum security measures. The final customer must be previously registered and a computer process guarantees anonymity and security.

Despite being surrounded by such caution, Uruguayan legal marijuana is still recreational. Because of its softness, it is considered to be a product for occasional use, ie for those who do not smoke every day. Two varieties of the largest families of cannabis that existed were chosen: Indicas and Sativas. The first are the best known plants in the world and in Europe, those that produce a sensation of relaxation and have a physical effect. The sativas, very consumed in Latin America, generate greater dynamism because they act at cerebral level.

The Government did not reach agreements with the big chains of pharmacies that assured the arrival of the product to the whole territory, composed of 19 departments and inhabited by 3.4 million people. But underneath, pharmacists recognize that legal marijuana is far less dangerous or psychoactive than dozens of products they sell every day at their premises.

The sales price of each package of five grams is 187 pesos, about 6.6 dollars and 5.7 euros, which sets the price of the gram in the already announced 1.30 dollars (1.12 euros). Registered consumers can buy a maximum of 10 grams a week and 40 grams per month. In total 4,959 people, according to the latest official data, registered to buy marijuana after carrying out a simple procedure in the post offices. Non-residents in Uruguay do not have access to the substance.

The other two chapters of the rule, the self-cultivation of a maximum of six plants and cannabis clubs, operate normally and without notable incidents since the first years of legalization. There are currently 63 clubs in operation and 6,948 self-cultivators

The first balances of more than three years of legalization, although partial, have been arriving little by little, indicating successes and some unforeseen. On the side of the successes, a study of the Faculty of Social Sciences assured that the existence of cannabis clubs and the authorization of self-cultivation deprived 20% of the market to drug traffickers. The research compares data on drug seizures and coincides with the perception of users in the streets: there is less Paraguayan press (illegal) and more national buds.

But that success of Uruguayan budding, which blooms with each crop along with the fashion of cultivating, brings with it another reality: many consumers continue to register without distrust in the State, generating a kind of gray market that the government looks closely.