MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) - Uruguay's plan to create the world's first national, government-regulated marketplace for legal pot may be going up in smoke.
Delays in implementing the plan are putting it at risk as polls point to opposition gains in October's election and say most Uruguayans oppose a legal pot marketplace. Opposition politicians have said they will seek to repeal or modify the legislation, which gives the national government power to oversee the production, sales and consumption of marijuana.
"I am convinced that the current project is never going to be applied," the principal opposition presidential candidate, Luis Lacalle Pou, told the Associated Press. "The entire project is not workable. The pharmacies don't want to sell the drug and nobody is going to register as a user, as the law obliges."
The legislation, which went into effect in May, allows for the growing of pot by licensed individuals, the formation of growers and users clubs, the sale by pharmacies of 40 grams of pot a month to registered users and the tracking of legally grown marijuana through a system of genetic markers of authorized plants.
President Jose Mujica and his Broad Front movement have promoted the plan as a way to deal with rising homicide and crime rates associated with drug trafficking and the increasing use of crack cocaine. In the last 13 years, the homicide rate in Uruguay has increased by 21 percent and the rate of violent robbery by 250 percent. Officials say a legal pot market could provide an alternative to crack and reduce the power of drug gangs.
"The appearance of drug trafficking signified a brutal cultural change in the world of crime and a nearly absolute disregard for the value of life," Mujica told the AP in May. "So we decided to try to snatch away a part of that market."
It wasn't until Friday, almost three months after the pot law went into effect, that the government made its first call for applications from those interested in growing pot for the legal market. It said after registration closes Aug. 18, bidders will be winnowed to a short list of candidates, from which up to five will be chosen to get a license for legal cultivation.
Officials have given conflicting dates for when the drug might reach pharmacies, ranging from late this year to sometime in 2015.
Experts say the delays are due to the fact no other country has attempted such a plan, and authorities still lack detailed plans and rules for creating the market.
While Mujica's marijuana plan was widely applauded globally and seen as going beyond marijuana legislation in the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington, most Uruguayans oppose it. The most recent poll said only 27 percent of Uruguayans surveyed approve of the law and 64 percent oppose it. Sixty-two percent said they want the law repealed. The survey by the polling firm Cifra questioned 1,001 people between July 4 and 15 and had an error margin of three percentage points.