{"id":8163,"date":"2018-03-28T20:54:14","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T20:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com?p=2999648&amp;preview_id=2999648"},"modified":"2018-03-28T20:54:14","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T20:54:14","slug":"what-the-world-can-learn-from-the-first-country-to-legalize-marijuana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/what-the-world-can-learn-from-the-first-country-to-legalize-marijuana\/","title":{"rendered":"What the world can learn from the first country to legalize marijuana"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/what-the-world-can-learn-from-the-first-country-to-legalize-marijuana\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"large-10 large-centered small-12 columns\">\n<p>Tiny Uruguay barely matches North Dakota in GDP, but with a few tweaks it could be the blueprint for the roll out of cannabis legalization in other nations.<\/p>\n<p>A new policy paper released by the Brookings Institution shines the spotlight on the South American nation for a clearer look at the lessons that can be learned from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/05\/02\/uruguay-medical-marijuana-pharmacy-registry\/78754\/\">world\u2019s first country<\/a> to legalize and implement adult-use cannabis sales.<\/p>\n<p>The country with a population of 3 million legalized cannabis in 2013 \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/07\/18\/uruguay-marijuana-pharmacies-sales\/83968\/\">starting sales in July 2017<\/a> \u2014 to head off a fervent black market flush with \u201cbrick weed,\u201d or pressed cannabis, from Paraguay. The law hasn\u2019t won many popularity contests, but it has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2014\/12\/01\/uruguay-marijuana-tabare-vazquez-election\/24352\/\">survived two presidential administrations<\/a>, researchers said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s always hard to go first, but it\u2019s not as hard to go second and third,\u201d said John Hudak, deputy director of the Center for Effective Public Management for the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization.<\/p>\n<p>Hudak partnered with researchers from the Washington Office on Latin America to explore how Uruguay\u2019s cannabis laws came to be, what\u2019s played out since, and what changes could be made to ensure their effectiveness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s been a real commitment to the rule of law and to the continuation of policy that I think is quite impressive in Uruguay,\u201d Hudak said.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"article-related right\">\n<h3>Related Articles<\/h3>\n<\/aside>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/07\/10\/uruguay-cannabis-legalization-government-sales-pharmacies\/83360\/\">Uruguay\u2019s law<\/a> was \u201cbold and cautious\u201d so as to accomplish the goal of combating drug trafficking while staying attuned to concerns that could arise from the international community, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Skepticism about the state runs deep in many Latin American countries because of their histories with dictatorships and atrocities committed against society, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd government lists are something that scare Latin Americans \u2026 there is a real lasting memory of that sort of behavior across the continent,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there was some real concern early on about this system, but there has been quite a bit of uptake since.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the 30,000-foot level Uruguay\u2019s law bears similarities to cannabis laws seen in U.S. states like Colorado and California. There are home-grow and commercial regulations, seed-to-sale tracking systems, initial supply shortages and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/08\/21\/uruguay-marijuana-sales-banks\/86465\/\">banking difficulties<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The market also presents pronounced differences.<\/p>\n<p>Uruguay doesn\u2019t have medical cannabis, which is often the precursor to U.S. adult-use laws; it has only two authorized cultivators; the federal government sets price and purchase restrictions; and sales are limited to citizens. Additionally, the law has exclusivity provisions under which a citizen must choose the one of three ways to procure cannabis: growing it themselves, joining a cannabis club or purchasing it at a pharmacy.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2014\/08\/27\/uruguayans-can-now-sign-grow-pot-home\/18795\/\">Uruguayans can now grow marijuana at home<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Following months of research and an October 2017 trip to Uruguay, Hudak and fellow authors WOLA\u2019s Geoff Ramsey and John Walsh saw areas of potential improvement in the nation\u2019s laws.<\/p>\n<p>The authors\u2019 seven recommendations include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Access to banking:<\/strong> Develop solutions to allow access to financial institutions. That could be an internal fix of having local banks \u201cplay a game of chicken with U.S. financial regulators\u201d or the creation of a partnership with bankers in Canada, which is expected to legalize adult-use sales this year.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Increase education:<\/strong> Reduce education gaps in medical and law enforcement communities. Develop classes for medical professionals and fund research into the potential medicinal efficacy of cannabis. Hold department-level trainings for law enforcement officers to prevent unlawful seizures of products.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Expand medical cannabis:<\/strong> Create a system for medical-specific uses of cannabis. The country has an infrastructure in place for this addition as Uruguay produces medical cannabis as exports to other countries.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Reconsider the exclusivity of distribution:<\/strong> Address issues such as supply shortages and illegal sales by devising a system that allows people to access the product legally via more than one specific means.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Create a dispensary model with viable revenue system:<\/strong> The price of cannabis is currently fixed at about U.S. $1.40 per gram. To increase revenue and the viability of the system, the government could consider subsidizing cannabis operations, either as private entities or government-run institutions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Legal sales to tourists:<\/strong> The government could consider implementing a pilot program by which tourists could legally purchase cannabis \u2014 perhaps at a higher cost.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Readiness to correct future implementation problems:<\/strong> Increase the staffing and funding for the Institute for the Regulation and Control of Cannabis, the regulatory body that oversees the laws. In addition to reliance on in-house officials providing evaluations of the system, IRCCA should rely on independent, academic analysis about the positive and negative aspects of the law.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/brookings.pr-optout.com\/Tracking.aspx?Data=HHL%3d8%2b54%3a0-%3eLCE58.%3b6%3c%26SDG%3c90%3a.&amp;RE=MC&amp;RI=5373473&amp;Preview=False&amp;DistributionActionID=53739&amp;Action=Follow+Link\">To read the full report, visit Brookings.edu.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#013; &#013; <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .row --> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s always hard to go first, but it&#8217;s not as hard to go second and third,&#8221; said the Brookings Institution&#8217;s John Hudak. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[77,6826,9,5019,1,3,132,61,1736],"tags":[2655,6828,5022,2710],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}