Uruguay legalisation: ‘good idea, but not what we’re proposing’

This week, Uruguay became the first country in the world to approve a bill that will effectively legalise and regulate the marijuana trade.

The decision has already caused shockwaves through an international community that has traditionally resisted similar calls for a global rethink on the 'war on drugs' for decades. But Uruguay's charismatic president Jose Mujica has mounted a spirited defence of his government's strategy.

"For every death that comes from an overdose... there are about 100 deaths produced by the troubles and murders of drug trafficking," he said in a speech that would go viral on YouTube. "That means that the worst social effects suffered are not from the drug itself, but from drug trafficking.

"Government, the people and Uruguay spend fortunes on police, technical means, wiretapping machines... all of that costs fortunes. Then, there's the management of jails. This poison reaches everywhere."

Uruguay is not the only country to have debated legalisation in response to a widely acknowledged failure of more restrictive policies. Mexico, home to some of the world's most notoriously violent drug trafficking cartels, is likewise reported to have considered similar legislation. Even the United States, whose former President Ronald Reagan coined the term 'war on drugs' in the 1980s, has recently softened its attitude towards cannabis. 'Medical marijuana' is now legal in several states, although federally possession remains a crime.

In Europe, Portugal remains the only country to have fully decriminalised cannabis possession, though it stopped short of legalisation along the lines proposed by Uruguay.

Even here in Malta - where there is immense statistical evidence that the legal system in place is not working - a similar discussion has been going on for some months now: fuelled in part by a spate of recent court decisions in which marijuana users have been handed down sentences comparable to those associated with murder and armed robbery.

AD, The Green Party, is the only political entity proposing decriminalisation of soft drugs such as marijuana (though significantly it bases its proposals on the Portuguese, not Uruguayan, model).

"Uruguay's position has substantial differences from what AD is proposing, which is based on the Portuguese model of decriminalisation, not State monopoly of the drug," AD spokesman Robert Callus told MaltaToday. "One has also to recognise that the geopolitical situation of South America has substantial differences from Europe, where drug cartels have an incredible amount of power, which is resulting in thousands of people getting killed in turf wars and contributes to lack of stability in the region. Such a move by the Uruguayan government is a blow to such cartels, and considering that reality we welcome it."

In Malta's situation AD supports only the decriminalisation of marijuana for personal use. Callus argues that it is imperative that the State recognise that there is a massive difference between a soft drug like cannabis and heavy drugs like heroin. "Thus, apart from decriminalisation of personal use, drugs should be classified as Class A or Class B accordingly."

The same issue has recently been given an unexpected boost by the Justice Reform Commission, headed by retired European Court of Human Rights judge Govanni Bonello.

"Part of the problem is that for many years, popular perceptions about drugs were hysterical, and this prompted a political reaction," Bonello said in a recent interview. "In a sense the legislature got carried away and started legislating to meet popular demand for tough sentences, rather than adopting a common-sense approach to the issue. Yet public opinion is not a very solid foundation to build laws on. If it were up to the general public to decide, we'd probably have the death penalty for a joint..."

The same principle extends beyond individual drug cases: Bonello argues that satisfying popular cravings for justice is not part of the law courts' job description.

"One immediate legislative change would be to distinguish between different drugs on the basis of their harmfulness. Personally I think we should also seriously consider substituting the present system, which often comes down like a million tonnes of bricks on minor drug-related offences, with a warning system for non-hardened personal users that does not involve the law courts at all. Not only will this be a fairer response to the crime, but it will relieve the courts of a lot of the pressure of unnecessary, time-consuming cases."