"We'll be the first country to have a regulatory framework for marijuana production, distribution, sale, consumption and medical research," says Julio Bango, one of the legislators who drafted the bill. "This is an experiment without a doubt and it will have a demonstrable effect. That could be important for the world because it could be the start of a new paradigm."
Uruguay is trying to bring the cannabis market under state control by undercutting and outlawing the traffickers. If the bill is passed, the government will arrange for a high-quality, legal product to be sold in a safe environment at a price that competes with that offered by illegal dealers.
"If one gram costs $1 in the black market, then we'll sell the legal product for $1. If they drop the price to 75 cents, then we'll put it at that level," says Julio Calzada, a presidential adviser and the head of the National Secretariat on Drugs.
Rather than liberalism, Uruguay's actions are better explained by a long and pragmatic tradition of market intervention and nationalisation. The state controls core energy and telecoms industries, it fixes prices for essentials such as milk and water, and it pioneered some of the tightest controls on tobacco in the world.
By opening the door to regulation of cannabis, Calzada says the government has an alternative to the "war on drugs" approach, which has created more problems than it has solved.
"For 50 years, we have tried to tackle the drug problem with only one tool – penalisation – and that has failed. As a result, we now have more consumers, bigger criminal organisations, money laundering, arms trafficking and collateral damage. As a control model, we're convinced that it is more harmful than the drugs themselves."
