José Mujica has asked the world to help him legalise use of marijuana.
According to Uruguayan president José Mujica, legalising weed will address the serious problem of drug trafficking.
As what most pot-smokers would have dreamt of fighting for, the president of Uruguay has asked the world to help him legalise use of marijuana.
According to a report in Huffington Post, José Mujica, in an interview with Brazilian daily A Folha de São Paulo, called on foreign governments to support his purpose of legalising the limited government sale of marijuana.
“We ask the world to help us create this experience. It will allow us to adopt a socio-political experiment to address the serious problem of drug trafficking… the effect of the drug traffic is worse than the drug,” Huffington Post quoted the 78-year-old president as saying.
Describing the soft drug as a 'vice', Mujica said in the interview that he didn’t care for marijuana, but his intention is to regulate an illicit market that already exists.
A bill that would give controlled sale of legal marijuana has already been passed in the national legislature’s lower house. The Senate, where Mujica’s supporters hold a majority, is expected to approve the unprecedented measure.
Uruguay has faced pressure from larger neighbours, such as Brazil, where the government has followed the US method of repressing drug use by force.
“There’s an apparatus in the world that lives by repressing, and it costs a lot of money... The repressive path has failed,” Mujica said.
Under the proposed Uruguayan law, pot smokers who register with the government would be able to buy weed from pharmacies, or grow up to six plants in their homes. However, only Uruguayan residents could participate in this to keep drug tourism at bay.
( Source : agencies )
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