New Uruguay govt in 'no rush' to sell pot at pharmacies
Montevideo (AFP) - The government of newly sworn-in Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez is in no hurry to implement his predecessor's controversial world-first law allowing marijuana sales at pharmacies, an official said Wednesday.
"I don't want to trap myself in time frames that cause us to make mistakes. We don't work with time frames, we work with guarantees so everything is done right," said the new secretary of the National Drug Council, Milton Romani.
"What's the hurry? We're in no hurry," he told newspaper El Observador.
The patron of the trailblazing plan, former president Jose Mujica, stepped down on Sunday, handing power back to his predecessor Vazquez in this country that bars presidents from serving consecutive terms.
While both presidents hail from the left-wing Broad Front party, they do not see eye to eye on the marijuana law, which Vazquez -- a cancer doctor who signed aggressive anti-smoking legislation in his first term -- criticized during his campaign but reluctantly promised to implement.
Under the law, which passed in December 2013, marijuana users are supposed to be able to choose a supply source -- pharmacies, cannabis clubs or home-grown plants -- and buy or grow the drug in a fully legal, regulated market.
But Mujica, a colorful former guerrilla fighter known for living in a dilapidated farm house and driving an old Volkswagen Beetle, left office with much of the implementation unfinished.
Cannabis clubs have been set up and land set aside for private growers to farm the plant on public fields.
Bids have also been accepted from companies seeking to supply marijuana to pharmacies. But pharmacy sales -- the most controversial part of the initiative -- have not yet been rolled out.
Romani vowed the legislation would ultimately be fully implemented.
"The president instructed me that we are going to fulfill the law in the best possible way. So there will be pharmacy sales. When I took office, Tabare emphasized that the law is going to be implemented. The only thing he wants is for it to be implemented well," he said.
Romani will travel to Vienna next week to defend the cannabis law at a meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which has questioned the plan.
