Uruguay’s Buttoned-Down Version of Marijuana Legalization

Last week Uruguay, the first country to
legalize marijuana,
unveiled its rules for getting high, which are notably stricter
in several respects than the regulations imposed by Colorado or
Washington. Every consumer has to register with the government and
pick one of
three options for obtaining marijuana: growing it at home (up
to six plants per household), joining a club consisting of 15 to 45
people growing no more than 99 plants for their own use, or buying
up to 10 grams (about a third of an ounce) per week from a
specially licensed pharmacy. No matter which option you pick, you
may possess no more than 480 grams (about a pound) over the course
of a year, so if you grow at home or in a club you’d better hope
your plants are not too productive.

By comparison, Colorado and Washington both allow purchases of
up to an ounce at a time, with no registration and no weekly or
yearly limit. Colorado allows home cultivation (up to six plants
per person) in addition to retail sales, and you can keep whatever
those plants produce in the location where you grow them (or share
it, up to an ounce at a time, with other adults, “without
remuneration”). One way in which both states are stricter than
Uruguay: Their legal age for purchase and possession is 21, while
Uruguay’s is 18.

Uruguay is banning all marijuana advertising, an option that is
not available in the United States due to constitutional
protections for freedom of speech. Even the restrictions imposed by
Colorado and Washington
may be vulnerable to challenge under the free speech guarantees
of those states’ constitutions, if not under the
First Amendment. Uruguay’s constitution
does declare that “the expression of opinion on any subject by word
of mouth, private writing, publication in the press, or by any
other method of dissemination is entirely free, without prior
censorship.” That freedom, I gather, does not include opinions
like, “Our Kurple Fantasy is the best!” 

Over all, Uruguay’s version of marijuana legalization, which is
supposed to be up and running by the end of the year, is decidedly
more buttoned down than Colorado’s or Washington’s, and that is the
way President Jose Mujica likes it. In a recent interview with the
Associated Press, the former Marxist revolutionary criticized Colorado’s
approach as excessively loose, saying “it’s a complete fiction what
they do” to control consumption. “No addiction is good,” Mujica
said. “We aren’t going to promote smokefests, bohemianism, all this
stuff they try to pass off as innocuous when it isn’t. They’ll
label us elderly reactionaries. But this isn’t a policy that seeks
to expand marijuana consumption. What it aims to do is keep it all
within reason, and not allow it to become an illness.”