1 Aug 2013
Uruguay votes to create world's first national legal marijuana market
Uruguay's unprecedented plan to create a legal marijuana market has taken its critical first step in the lower house of Congress. All 50 members of the ruling Broad Front coalition approved the proposal just before midnight on Wednesday in a party line vote, keeping a narrow majority of the 96 MPs present after more than 13 hours of passionate debate.
The measure now goes to the Senate, where passage is expected to make Uruguay the first country in the world to license and enforce rules for the production, distribution and sale of marijuana for adult consumers. Legislators in the ruling coalition said putting the government at the centre of a legal marijuana industry is worth trying because the global war on drugs had been a costly and bloody failure, and displacing illegal dealers through licensed pot sales could save money and lives. They also hope to eliminate a legal contradiction in Uruguay, where it has been legal to use pot but against the law to sell it, buy it, produce it or possess even one marijuana plant.
"Uruguay appears poised, in the weeks ahead, to become the first nation in modern times to create a legal, regulated framework for marijuana," said John Walsh, a drug policy expert at the Washington Office on Latin America. "In doing so, Uruguay will be bravely taking a leading role in establishing and testing a compelling alternative to the prohibitionist paradigm."
10 Jan 2013
The poorest president in the world
The President of Uruguay Jose Mujica has been dubbed by international media as 'the poorest president in the world'.
In his latest official declaration of wealth, he says he owns just two vehicles, a small amount of property and his farmhouse. He donates 90% of his salary to charity. Mujica became president of Uruguay after a landslide victory more than two years ago. After a half a term in power, he is now backing a bill to legalise the use of cannabis
18 Jul 2011
Ex-Uruguayan Dictator Dies
Former Uruguayan President-turned-dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry died early Sunday at home, where he was serving a 30-year sentence for killings and disappearances during his country's war against so-called subversives. He was 83. Bordaberry had been suffering from breathing problems and other illnesses before he died.
Elected in 1971, Bordaberry was a wealthy, conservative landholder who cut short his democratic term with a June 27, 1973 auto-coup carried out with military backing. He suspended the constitution, banned political parties, ordered tanks to ring Congress and ruled for three years by decree until his 1976 ouster by generals who went on to lead a right-wing dictatorship until 1985.