Monday, July 30, 2012

Marijuana Legalization in Uruguay

Troubled by drug-related violence, the leadership of Uruguay is considering legislation that would completely legalize marijuana:
Uruguay’s famously rebellious president first called for “regulated and controlled legalization of marijuana” in a security plan unveiled last month. . . . “It’s a profound change in approach,” said Sebastián Sabini, one of the lawmakers working on the contentious proposal unveiled by President José Mujica on June 20. “We want to separate the market: users from traffickers, marijuana from other drugs like heroin.”
This is just one of a range of legalization schemes being considered across Latin America, where people are tired of the price paid in criminality and violence for attempts to suppress the drug trade.

If I ran Mexico, I would certainly embrace legalization. How could legal drugs possibly result in more mayhem than their raging narco war?

1 comment:

leif said...

heck if i ran the US, i would remove the incentive for gangs and the violence that has always accompanied them. the time period -- the 1920s or any other era -- matters not. people provide a willing and constant demand for taking a trip. there's more harm in prohibiting it. i agree with ron paul on this: it's dumb to do it, and i won't, but prohibiting it is not the solution.