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This South American country has decriminalized all drugs for 40 years

Uruguay Drug Marijuana
REUTERS/Andres Stapff

For over 40 years, an interesting social experiment has been going on in the tiny South American country of Uruguay. In 1974, the government made it legal to possess drugs.

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Not just any drug. All drugs.

Decree Law 14294 set a precedent that people could avoid jail time so long they held "a minimum quantity [of illicit substances], intended solely for personal use." You couldn't manufacture drugs or sell them, but you were free to snort, inject, and toke as you pleased.

Some day, countries around the world might look to Uruguay as an example on how to liberalize drug policies on a national level, as opposed to the state-by-state ballot initiatives that we see in the US. In recent years, Uruguay has struggled to create a framework for regulating cannabis, which, if successful, could make it easier for residents to buy safe pot.

Before Uruguay calls itself a shining example, though, it must work out the kinks in its drug laws.

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In a report by the Brookings Institution, a think tank that conducts research in the social sciences, the authors concede that Uruguay's legal framework is not without its faults.

The policy leaves a door open for interpretation. It allows people to be caught with a "minimum quantity" of drugs, but doesn't lay out threshold amounts for any substances. Instead, individual judges decide on a case-by-case basis, which can lead to major discrepancies in sentences. It's also difficult to know whether the person brought in on charges of possession really intended to use the drugs for personal use, as the law demands.

A marijuana sample is checked by a judge during a judging session at Uruguay's second Cannabis Cup at a hotel in downtown Montevideo in this June 22, 2013 file picture. REUTERS/Andres Stapff/Files
A judge inspects a jar of flower during Uruguay's Cannabis Cup in downtown Montevideo. Thomson Reuters

Another glaring issue with Uruguay's existing drug policy is that, while it may be legal to use drugs, there's no way to legally buy drugs.

The hypocrisy in the legislation might be well-intended when it comes to drugs with high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical use, such as the highly addictive, crack-like cocaine product "pasta base" that has ravaged the country for years.

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But to obtain a drug like cannabis — which has proven medical benefits — recreational and medicinal users turn to the black market, buying dubious weed brought in from Paraguay, often from the same drug dealers who peddled pasta base.

For decades, the government continued to punish the cultivation and sale of pot. That is, until the tides turned yet again in 2013, when Uruguay became the first country in the world to explicitly legalize cannabis.

The country also introduced new legislation to support a distribution infrastructure. People over 18 could grow up to six marijuana plants at home or join a "cannabis club," similar to dispensaries in the US.

uruguay marijuana selfie
Visitors take pictures of themselves with marijuana during Uruguay's 2015 Expo Cannabis Fair. Matilde Campodonico/AP

Now the country is in the process of opening licensed pharmacies, where individuals can buy up to 10 grams of weed a week — that's roughly the equivalent of 10 joints — with or without a doctor's recommendation. Up to 160,000 Uruguayans are expected to gain access to marijuana through pharmacy sales by mid-2016, Foreign Policy reports.

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In the time it took the government to shake up its legislation around cannabis, the country experienced a bump in crime. In 2012 and 2013, Uruguay saw record homicide rates and an increase in robberies, according to the Brookings Institution.

The correlation between crime and the drug trade is unclear, though it's possible that a lack of legal means to buy drugs pushed some in the wrong direction. In 2015, Uruguay's drug trafficking unit seized a record 5,558 pounds of illicit marijuana, the highest amount in years.

On the bright side, cocaine and pasta base seizures are down since 2013, when the cannabis legislation passed, Foreign Policy reports. There's a growing body of research that suggests people suffering from chronic pain or addiction decrease their opioid consumption when using cannabis.

Cocaine does not fall in the opioid category, though the Uruguay government considered giving pot to prisoners coping with cocaine addition in 2014.

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"To shrink the black market, the legal market needs to be convenient enough to attract users," John Walsh, a senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America who worked with the Uruguayan government on the legislation, told Foreign Policy.

Uruguay has accomplished a lot through trial and error. It set out to shape a system that bolstered public health and reduced crime, rather than focus on commercialization.

But the work is incomplete. While Uruguay aims to set an example, its drug policies still remain a tangled mess.

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