- Uruguay is the first country to regulate legal production, sale and consumption of marijuana
- New rules legalizing the marijuana market take effect Tuesday
- President Jose Mujica backed the law and says it will harm drug traffickers
- The law doesn’t give foreigners the right to smoke or even buy the drug
(CNN) — Can you imagine legally growing marijuana in your backyard? How about walking down to the corner pharmacy to buy a gram or two of ready-to-smoke pot?
Starting Tuesday, this scenario will no longer be a pot smoker’s fantasy in one South American country.
Uruguay has published regulations for a new, legal marijuana market, a measure approved by lawmakers there in December.
The law and the new regulations make Uruguay the first country in the world to have a system regulating legal production, sale and consumption of the drug.
In announcing the marijuana regulations, presidential aide Diego Canepa reminded everyone that the state will control the marijuana market from beginning to end, starting with setting prices.
“The value of the gram of marijuana sold at pharmacies in the regulated market will be set by the President’s office through the control agency,” Canepa said.
That’s right. The Uruguayan government has created an agency whose mission is to regulate the pot market, known as the Institute for the Regulation and Control of Cannabis.
The proposed price starts at 20 Uruguayan pesos per gram (about 87 cents in U.S. dollars), Canepa said.
People can grow as many as six plants at home and produce a maximum of 480 grams per year, according to the published rules. Cannabis clubs of anywhere between 15 and 45 members will be legal.
Another rule allows people to buy as much as 40 grams of marijuana per month at state-licensed pharmacies.
Julio Rey, founder of a cannabis club and a spokesman for the National Association for the Regulation of Marijuana, told CNN in December, shortly after passage, that his organization was very pleased with the legislation.
“We will take care of the tools of this law to demonstrate that we, as the public, can objectively look at this project and comply with its proposed legality,” Rey said.
This isn’t about creating a free-for-all system,
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