SAM Responds to New Uruguay Marijuana Policy

SAM RESPONDS TO NEW URUGUAY MARIJUANA POLICY
Today, from a meeting on drug policy in Colombia, SAM co-founder and Director, Dr. Kevin Sabet, made the following comments about Uruguay’s legalization of marijuana:

“Against the vast majority of the will of its citizens, leaders from its own hemisphere, and even medical doctors in its own legislature, Uruguay has embarked on the dangerous public health policy of legalization.

It will be interesting to see if their said goals of reducing the black market of marijuana from Paraguay will be achieved, but it is doubtful. Young people, tourists looking for a safe haven, and others will still get their marijuana from a continued thriving black market.

The United Nations said today in Vienna that Uruguay violates international drug treaties by allowing the cultivation and sale of marijuana. We agree with the International Narcotics Control Board President Raymond Yans that the decision ‘will not protect young people but rather have the perverse effect of encouraging early experimentation, lowering the age of first use, and thus contributing to developmental problems and earlier onset of addiction and other disorders.’

Finally, it is interesting that no other leaders in Latin America are going this route. Uruguay is on it’s own here and other regional leaders have understood that we can indeed have alternatives to current drug policy, but that those alternatives should not violate standards of public health and safety.”

Today, at the Organization of American States 54th Meeting of CICAD in Bogotá, Dr. Sabet released a new document, “Alternatives? Yes. Legalization? No” in both Spanish and English, available at http://drugpolicyfutures.org/publications/.