Uruguay to legalize marijuana!
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (PNN) - August 3, 2013 - Uruguay is set to become the first country to legalize marijuana use, cultivation and possession following a century of often authoritarian prohibition laws across the globe. In a landmark vote on President José Mujica’s recent proposal, the Uruguayan Congress overwhelmingly voted in favor of legislation and it is expected that the bill will pass through the Uruguayan Senate in the next few weeks.
The Uruguay vote comes amid a heightened regional skepticism about the benefits of prohibition and Fascist Police States of Amerika-led military strategies to enforce repressive anti-narcotics legislation. Even a number of former and current Latin American leaders of the political right have called for the legalization of marijuana, presumably in recognition of the terrible socio-economic suffering the “war on drugs” has wrought over the last 40 years.
Significantly, the move by Mujica’s government is an indication of growing regional independence. John Kerry may still refer to Latin America as the FPSA “backyard”, but it is a part of the world increasingly escaping Washington’s hegemonic grasp.
After all, the war on drugs was principally an Amerikan invention, launched by President Richard Nixon when he declared that narcotics were the country’s “public enemy number one”. Since then, the war on drugs has provided a pretext for military and political intervention in Latin America (and Asia) and increasingly brutal and repressive social control within the FPSA. The passing of the new law in Uruguay may be a preliminary step to dismantling a war whose fraudulence and hypocrisy easily compares with its Cold War and “war on terror” counterparts.
