Uruguay’s cannabis regulation thrust the nation onto the global drug policy reform spotlight in 2013 when it passed the Law 19.172, creating a nationally regulated market. The law aimed to protect, promote and improve public health, while minimising the risks and harms associated with cannabis consumption. It also focused on promoting information and education on cannabis, as well as promoting treatment for problematic drug use.
The regulation introduced three ways of access to the drug: self-cultivation, affiliation to cannabis clubs, and commercialisation through pharmacies. The first cannabis clubs were registered in 2014; self-cultivation began in 2015; pharmaceutical commercialisation in 2017. As of 2022, there were 249 clubs registered in Uruguay, as well as 14,000 registered home cultivators.
It is worth noting that cannabis consumption has never been a crime in Uruguay, unlike its sale and cultivation. The 2013 law eliminated the contradiction between allowing consumption yet forbidding legal access.
One of the main arguments used then to support regulation was that it would take away an important market share from illegal cannabis sellers, removing the drug from the various other substances sold like cocaine, cocaine paste, and methamphetamine. It would enable some control over the strength and quality of consumed cannabis, therefore reducing risks. Arguments against the law claimed that regulating would encourage its consumption, reducing the perception of consumption-related risks and actually increasing usage.
How successful was Uruguay’s cannabis regulation?
In July 2024, El Observador, one of the most circulated newspapers in Uruguay, shared the results of a survey conducted with 5,000 Uruguayans on the national drug market. It was carried out in partnership with representatives from the Universidad de la República and the National Statistics Institute.
It indicated that 47% of the surveyed Uruguayans agreed with the decision to regulate cannabis; this is a significant rise from the 26% estimated to agree with regulation in 2012, one year before regulation.
“Prior to the implementation of a public policy [like cannabis regulation], negative consequences and fears are usually discussed,” Fabricio Carneiro, one of the survey’s researchers told El Observador.
“As politics advance, if those consequences are not seen in practice, society increases its acceptance,” he added, highlighting that the same had happened with same sex marriage and the decriminalisation of abortion.
Key leadership for progress
Cannabis regulation is not supported by all Uruguayans: some of the most conservative sectors of Uruguayan politics have tried to revoke its regulation, claiming it hasn’t ended narcotraffic. The El Observador survey also shows that only 47% of those surveyed agreed with cannabis’ regulation. Despite some political opposition and popular ambivalence, Daniel Radío, the Secretary of the Junta Nacional de Drogas (National Drug Agency) believes that Uruguay should push ahead with further drug policy reforms. In a radio interview in August, he stated that the nation’s drug policy should be led by public health priorities and a human-centred pragmatism, rather than by public opinion. He also argued that prohibition has failed to curtail harms related to drug markets and consumption, and that the state should take a leading role in educating citizens about drug risks while respecting individuals’ liberties.
Psychedelics may be the next class of drugs to be regulated in Uruguay. Radío suggested this in the same radio interview, justifying this decision not only due to their widespread consumption at electronic parties, but because of the risks associated with their adulterated supply. His arguments were supported by El Observador’s survey, where psychedelics were the second most approved drug class to next be regulated. Support for this reform is still limited: only 24% of people agreed with their regulation, compared with 47% for cannabis. It is, however, the same amount of support that cannabis had when it was legalised in 2013.
Did regulation increase cannabis consumption?
Even though 64% of those surveyed by El Observador feel that consumption has risen by a bit or a lot, Carneiro and his team believe that this rise is explained due to a higher visibility of existing use. This is corroborated by the National Observatory’s research, which highlighted a consistent rise in self-declared cannabis use: life-time cannabis use has gone up from 20% of the population in 2011 (the closest study date before legalisation) to 30% in 2019. This rise in use is comparable to neighbouring Chile, which has had a similar increase in lifetime prevalence without legal regulation.
Regulation’s impact on the illegal market
While the regulated market has meant that people are increasingly less reliant on cannabis sourced from organised criminal groups, the legal market has not managed to fully capture the illegal market.
Radío estimated that, in 2024, cannabis’ regulation is diverting around 25 million dollars from narcotraffic – a significant amount for a country like Uruguay. This value represents approximately half of the Uruguayan cannabis market which, if not by the regulated market, would go entirely to the illegal market.
How does the cannabis that do not participate in the regulated market circulate? Radío has pointed to the existence of two parallel markets: one is the traditional narcotrafficking market, selling pressed Paraguayan cannabis instead of cannabis flower. In 2022, Paraguayan cannabis represented around 30% of the illegal market.
The second market is a “grey market” of cannabis produced and sold by a mix of unregistered cultivators. The legal Uruguayan market has forced people to register on a national database in order to cultivate cannabis or buy it in pharmacies; many have refused to register. There is also the possibility that people are cultivating cannabis while registered, yet selling or gifting to others. That is why, in a country with an estimated 240,000 cannabis consumers, there are only 90,000 registered cannabis users.
The main reason is that the law requires users to register on a national database in order to access the drug, which has raised resistance. It is estimated that Uruguay has 250.000 cannabis users and only 90.000 registered users.
Shifting the focus from the drug to those using them
Uruguay’s cannabis regulation has been a great demonstration of how the regulation of one drug can remove the presence of organised crime from that market; and while not all consumers are now purchasing from a legal source, the harm that the illegal cannabis market is causing to the wider Uruguayan society can be argued to have been reduced.
What Radío has highlighted is that the debate of drug regulation acknowledges that drug use has always happened; regulation comes as a pragmatic response to minimise its harms, rather than enforce a prohibitionist policy that has failed in this task.
The push to reform the legal status of other drugs underscores how public health must at times go beyond public opinion to protect and improve a community’s overall health. This is particularly the case for more vulnerable populations – such as those that are homeless, unemployed, or suffering from mental health disorders – who continue to be stigmatised for their drug use, rather than supported to use drugs in a less harmful way.
While there are still lessons to be learnt from Uruguay’s model of cannabis regulation, it has been an important milestone, underscoring how cannabis regulation is complex and ever-evolving.
