Pubdate: Sat, 03 May 2014
Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR)
Copyright: 2014 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
Contact: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform/
Website: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/25
Author: Leonardo Haberkorn, the Associated Press
Page: 7A

URUGUAY LEADER CALLS COLORADO 'POT' LAW A 'FICTION,' SAYS OWN WILL DO

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - President Jose Mujica said Friday that Uruguay's
legal marijuana market will be much better than the system in
Colorado, which doesn't track the drug after sale. And he said the
medical-marijuana laws many U.S. states have adopted are based on
"hypocrisy" because they enable people to fake illnesses to get the
drug.

Mujica also predicted Friday that Uruguay's system will be much
tougher on drug users and more effective in combating illegal drug
trafficking.

Mujica, who will visit President Barack Obama in the White House on
May 12, said his government will license and regulate the entire
marijuana business, enforcing possession rules as well as limits on
production and sales so that violators get punished and addicts get
help.

Just hours before the release of Uruguay's long-awaited marijuana
regulations, the former leftist guerrilla also predicted that many
will call him an old reactionary once they see the fine print.

"We don't go along with the idea that marijuana is benign, poetic and
surrounded by virtues. No addiction is good," he 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."

Uruguay's rules, which Mujica plans to sign Monday, will take effect
Tuesday. The plan calls for disseminating clones of
government-approved marijuana plants so that police can test marijuana
possessed by licensed users and ensure that it's bona fide. Possession
of marijuana lacking the genetic markers of approved plants will be
criminally punished.

Mujica said that "it's a complete fiction what they do in Colorado,"
which licenses marijuana sellers and producers but allows any adult to
buy up to 28 grams at a time. In Uruguay, consumers must be licensed
as well, and each purchase will be tracked to ensure they buy no more
than 10 grams a week.

Mujica also criticized the medical marijuana laws passed by 21 U.S.
states and the District of Columbia.

"There are places where there are forms already filled out with a
doctor's signature. So you go, you say that you need marijuana because
your ear hurts, they fill out the form, you prescribe it yourself and
with the signature of a doctor. This is brutal hypocrisy."

It's a critical time for Mujica and the ruling Broad Front coalition,
which has staked its reputation on out-competing traffickers and
treating marijuana more as a problem of public health than law
enforcement.

Mujica is a former guerrilla who led the armed Tupamaro movement
before Uruguay's 1973-1985 dictatorship. At the time, the Tupamaro's
were sworn enemies of the South American military powers supported by
U.S. President Richard Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger.

Mujica was jailed throughout the junta years, mostly in solitary
confinement. Now he not only leads his country, but he's also an
international celebrity after making passionate speeches against
consumerism and greed.
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MAP posted-by: Matt