The deputies of the ultra-conservative party, Town meetingthey proposed to their multicolor coalition partners repeal all of Law 19,172, which regulates, controls and decriminalizes cannabis, under the premise that it has served no purpose.
“If we find consensus with the rest of the legislators of the ruling party, we are willing to advance in the total, partial repeal or whatever leads, in some way, to minimize the bad effects that marijuana has on society,” he told Underlined the deputy lobbyist Álvaro Perrone.
“We are going for all the repeal,” he sentenced.
The ultra-conservative legislator pointed out that, if the law is repealed completely, “everything falls” as provided by it and “if it has to fall, let it fall, because the same as the sale in pharmacies, the plantation and all that is not working at all ”.
In the coalition, there is an affinity to this but on different levels. The white deputy, Álvaro Dastugue, said that what his party is seeking is the repeal of Article 2, on the understanding that “the State does not have to be responsible for planting, distributing, or selling marijuana.” .
Another of the changes that are valued in the PN, without mentioning a total repeal -as CA wants-, is the elimination of the permit to sell in pharmacies, citing an alleged bad image due to the supposed increase in consumers.
The CA leader, Guido Manini Ríos, also spoke about this last Wednesday saying that “we must fight drugs” and called for an “aggressive” campaign to discourage consumption, especially in young populations.
Lacalle thinks differently
Asked about this debate, the President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, said that the system created by the law is “Improveable and perfectible” but does not plan to propose modifications.
“Propose changes, personally, not now,” he said at a press conference on July 18. However, she returned to her statements given in the interview to the BBC: “I believe that the State does not have to dedicate itself to planting and selling. I did not vote for that part of the law,” he stated.
“I don’t believe in states growing and selling marijuana. I believe in people, in cannabis clubs or whatever we have, that produce their own marijuana and can have their own circles of consumption, and not the State, “added the president.
The data
According to studies carried out periodically by the Institute for the Regulation and Control of Cannabis (IRCCA), as of May 31, 2020 there were a total of 8,418 self-cultivators, 41,238 purchasers and 158 cannabis clubs with 4,834 members, totaling 54,490 legal consumers.
As of December 31, 2021, there were 13,441 home growers, 47,515 purchasers in pharmacies and 220 cannabis clubs with 7,032 members, for a total of 67,998 individuals.
In terms of distribution of records in the country, it is observed that the Department of Maldonado continues to show, in relative terms, the largest number of registered persons; Between the three access routes, there are 7,271 people, which means that for every 1,000 inhabitants aged 18 or over, there are 61.5 who are in the regulated market. In second place is Montevideo, which maintains within the regulated market 33.5 people for every 1,000 inhabitants aged 18 or over.
The department with the least weight continues to be, both in absolute and relative terms, Rivera, where only 8 out of every 1,000 inhabitants aged 18 or over are registered to access marijuana through any of the three routes.
