Uruguay plans to sell pot: official

Price $1 per gram, but only for locals

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay Uruguay’s drug czar says the country plans to sell legal marijuana for $1 per gram to combat drug-trafficking, according to a local newspaper.

The plan to create a government-run legal marijuana industry has passed the lower house of Congress, and Uruguayan President José Mujica expects to push it through the Senate soon as part of his effort to explore alternatives in the war on drugs.

The measure would make Uruguay the first country in the world to license and enforce rules for the production, distribution and sale of marijuana for adult consumers.

Marijuana sales should start in the second half of 2014 at a price of about $1 per gram, drug chief Julio Calzada told a local newspaper, El Pais, on Sunday.

That’s an eighth or less of what marijuana costs at legal medical dispensaries in some U.S. states.

Calzada said one gram will be enough, “for one marijuana cigarette or two or three slimmer cigarettes.”

He said the idea is not to make money, but to fight petty crime and wrench the market away from illegal dealers.

“The illegal market is very risky and of poor quality,” he said. The state “is going to offer a safe place to buy a quality product, and on top of that, it’s going to sell it at the same price.”

In August, he had estimated that the price would be around $2.50 per gram.

Sales would be restricted to locals, who could buy up to 40 grams per month.