Cannabis legalised in Uruguay

[ScienceRocks]

Cannabis legalised in Uruguay



Cannabis legalised in Uruguay | euronews, world news

Uruguay appears set to become the first country in the world to create a legal market for marijuana.

Supporters say the fight against drugs and trafficking has failed and the country needs new alternatives.

50 MPs in the House of Representatives in Montevideo approved the bill in the 96 seat chamber.

If the bill is passed by the Senate, people over 18 and who are registered on a database can now grow up to six plants, or purchase up to 40 grammes, 1.4 ounces, a month.

 

[editec]

That's nice but I doubt I'll be vacationing there.

 

[Mad Scientist]

How long until the US Invades? There's too much money to be made in Illegal Drugs to let a single Country come along and kill that Cash Cow.

 

[Katzndogz]

Didn't Portugal legalize all drugs not long ago? It didn't help Portugal either.

 

[Pogo]

Didn't Portugal legalize all drugs not long ago? It didn't help Portugal either.

Cannabis isn't a drug, but here's the lowdown on Portugal:

>> The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.

... The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."

... Portugal's case study is of some interest to lawmakers in the U.S., confronted now with the violent overflow of escalating drug gang wars in Mexico. The U.S. has long championed a hard-line drug policy, supporting only international agreements that enforce drug prohibition and imposing on its citizens some of the world's harshest penalties for drug possession and sales. Yet America has the highest rates of cocaine and marijuana use in the world, and while most of the E.U. (including Holland) has more liberal drug laws than the U.S., it also has less drug use.<<

(more at the link)

 

[waltky]

Wonder what Pope Francis has to say `bout dat?...

Same-sex marriage bill comes into force in Uruguay
4 August 2013 > Same sex couples will be allowed to apply to marry in Uruguay from Monday, nearly four months after a bill was approved by the country's Congress.

President Jose Mujica signed the legislation in May but it was only due to enter into effect 90 days later. About half a dozen couples should apply for dates at civil registry offices in the coming days, activists say. Following Argentina in 2010, Uruguay became the second South American nation to pass same-sex marriage legislation.

Across Latin America, the number of countries allowing gay unions or marriages is growing. In Brazil, the council that oversees the country's judiciary said offices could not deny the issue of civil union documents when gay couples wanted full marriage certificates. However, the issue still requires a bill to be approved by the Congress.

Mexican states

In Colombia, a judge recently ordered a notary to sign a document which - while not being a marriage certificate - in effect gave a same-sex couple the same rights as heterosexual couples. Last week, Colima became the latest Mexican state to allow civil unions among gay couples. Mexico City and the southern state of Quintana Roo already allow gay marriages, while Coahuila allows same-sex civil unions. In April, Congress in Uruguay approved the bill by more than two-thirds of the lower chamber, despite stark opposition from the Catholic Church.

The proposal had already been passed by the Senate by 23 votes to 8 a week earlier. It allows same-sex couples to choose the order of the surnames of the children they adopt. In recent years, Uruguay has moved to allow same-sex civil unions, adoption by gay couples, and to allow gay members of the armed forces. Uruguay's neighbour Argentina legalised gay marriage in 2010.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23571197

See also:

First same-sex civil union legalized in Colombia
Jul 24,`13 -- Colombia got its first legalized same-sex union Wednesday when a judge sanctioned the partnership of two men who have been a couple for two decades.

The newly legalized couple cheered the ceremony as a marriage, although experts cautioned that a high court ruling that deemed the union legal did not make it the equivalent of marriage. "We are civilly married," Gonzalo Ruiz, 44, told The Associated Press just after ceremony with his partner, Carlos Hernando Rivera, 57. The ceremony follows Congress' failure in April to pass a law setting up a legal framework for civil unions. A 2011 order from the Constitutional Court had ordered legislators to pass a law granting marriage equality to gay couples by June 20, 2013, or else such couple would be allowed to join in civil unions before judges.

A previous ruling by the high court had allowed same-sex couples in Colombia to enjoy since 2007 many of the benefits of marriage, including inheritance, pensions and health and death benefits. "They entered as bachelors and exited married," Marcela Sanchez, director of Colombia Diversa, an LGBT-rights group, said after about 100 guests celebrated the union by throwing rice at the couple.

However, former Constitutional Court president, Carlos Gaviria, said that while the contract that Judge Carmen Lucia Rodriguez sanctioned between Rivera and Ruiz is a kind of civil matrimony, it cannot legally be called marriage. "It is an unnamed contract that is not matrimony," he said. Sanchez and other activists want same-sex marriage to be enshrined in Colombian law so gay couples can, for one, legally adopt. The Roman Catholic Church and the office of the Public Attorney, which nominally represents civil society, are among institutions that oppose it.

Evan Wolfson of the U.S.-based group Freedom To Marry said that while Wednesday's ceremony is a step forward, civil unions are not enough. "Legal protections, whether through civil union or partnership, are better than no legal protections - but fall far short of the full measure of security, clarity, and dignity, the tangible and intangible meanings, that come with marriage itself," he said in an email. In Latin America, gay marriage is legal only in the countries of Argentina and Uruguay and in Mexico City.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...L_UNION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

 

[ScienceRocks]

I guess you can fuck a guy and walk around with him now. Damn.