Do you remember the model? Uruguay, that of the revolutionary president Pepe Mujica, now 89 years old and suffering from cancer but who a dozen years ago had inspired the left all over the world with his social recipes and, the first country in the world to do so, with the legalization of cannabis? Well, while maintaining the social and scientific validity of that epochal turning point on so-called soft drugs, followed by other countries (in Europe only Holland, Germany and Malta for all intents and purposes), from an economic point of view it seems that it didn’t work so good.
In 2013, in the midst of Mujica’s presidency, the South American country was in fact a pioneer in legalizing (and not just decriminalizing) cannabis and its cultivation for recreational, pharmaceutical and industrial uses, with the idea not only of removing this business from the crime but also to stimulate a export potentially flourishing.
Cannabis in Uruguay: Consumption Takes Off, But Business Doesn’t
After 11 years, it can be said that the cannabis use through the official channels established by the government (over 400 clubs and dozens of authorized pharmacies) it is yes taken off, but they didn’t do the same business. Today, almost 100.000 Uruguayans are registered on the appropriate institutional platforms (out of a population of 3,4 million), but since 2018, according to what he writes Bloomberg Foreign sales totaled less than $30 million, compared to estimates at the time of $750 billion a year, with thousands of new jobs created, while the total number of jobs generated to date is just XNUMX across the country.
This, the American newspaper claims, is due to the bureaucracy and above all of “an international market that is not yet ready”, given that for example neighbouring Brazil, which potentially represents 2/3 of the South American market, has only this year decriminalised cannabis for personal use (up to 40 grams per person) and legalized that for therapeutic use. That is, recreational use is no longer a crime, up to a certain threshold, but only medical use is legal in all respects.
Uruguay: A Tax Haven Aiming for Success in the Cannabis Market
Yet Uruguay, which today has a centre-right government (there will be another vote at the end of October) and has in fact become a South American tax haven, attracting foreign millionaires and multinationals such as Google which moved a data center there by investing 850 million dollars, had initially also attracted the interest of some important companies in the cannabis field. Local top players such as Pharmin, Global Cannabis Holdings and Boreal had also emerged, but in the meantime they have closed their doors, while the pharmaceutical company MedicPlast has left the segment. Investments had even arrived from Canada, with Aurora Cannabis leaving the country at the end of the year after having invested 263 million dollars in 2018. The prospects with the (partial) entry into the market of Brazil and now Argentina are more promising, but to date the Pioneering of Uruguay he didn’t pay.
It just came too soon, in a context more immature often for ideological reasons. Just think that all over the world, the countries where the consumption of cannabis for recreational and not only therapeutic use is expressly regulated and not only tolerated, and excluding those like theItaly that have opened only to “cannabis light”, are just ten: in addition to Uruguay, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, Malta, the Netherlands, Germany, South Africa, Georgia and Thailand. And some US states, but not at a national level.
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Publish date : 2024-09-28 18:30:00
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