The state-produced joint simply lacks the "flash"

Noble furniture and a breathtaking view: South America's first cannabis wellness resort "La Tertulia" lures with luxury, glamor and completely new experiences. The five-star hotel is nestled in the rocky landscape just under a three-hour drive from Montevideo. Vendors promise peace, tranquility and a higher level of relaxation to those who come here.

The target group are guests who are specifically interested in the medical use of cannabis. So if you want to know more about the joint, you will also find time to explore the benefits of cannabis between asados ​​(barbecues), luxury accommodation and Uruguayan wine.

The tourism lighthouse project for the well-off is possible, among other things, because Uruguay is the first country in the world to produce and sell marijuana under state supervision. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the decisive vote in the country's parliament. Analysts, scientists and politicians are now taking stock. And there are a few surprises.

"The whole project was never designed to become a state business model, but to take the market away from the illegal drug trade," explains social scientist Lorena Repetto from the University of the Republic (Udelar) in an interview with WELT.

Uruguay's president at the time, the left-wing politician Pepe Mujica, who was enormously popular throughout Latin America, put it this way: “We have to wrest business from them. We have to destroy the mafia's business.” If the state produces and sells the drugs itself, the cartels' business model will collapse, so the calculation goes.

Repetto researched the project together with two colleagues. In their report, which is available to WELT, it says: "The cannabis regulation has created a legal market, but not eliminated the illegal market." One result of the regulation is competition between the illegal and legal markets. In Uruguay, Repetto therefore speaks of a "grey market" for which, among other things, it applies that cannabis is produced legally, but legal mechanisms are not necessarily chosen for its distribution.

One reason for the gray market's success is that 60 percent of respondents are dissatisfied with the quality of the state-produced joint, according to a recent survey conducted by the Institute for Regulation and Control of Cannabis (IRCCA). The right "hit" is missing. The so-called self-cultivators, on the other hand, are considered real cultivation experts and apparently bring better stuff onto the market, which then finds a niche in "grey" mechanisms.

The movement of consumers towards the gray market in Uruguay is actually having positive consequences in terms of exposure to crime: fewer and fewer consumers are buying cannabis in so-called "bocas" or from old-style "dealers", i.e. the old black market.

The number of cannabis users who buy from traditional drug dealers fell from 78 percent in 2014 to 41 percent in 2017. In short, a success: "Keeping consumers away from drug trafficking and the violence associated with it was one of the main objectives of the regulation," says the study.

The latest figures give an overview of the level of legal use. There are now more than 70,000 registered cannabis users in the country, which has a population of around 3.4 million, which is slightly fewer than Berlin.

Around 70 producers buy the legally produced goods in the pharmacies provided for this purpose, 20 percent are registered as self-cultivators and ten percent are registered as members of cannabis clubs. The number of officially registered cannabis users has increased steadily since 2017. This is also a success for the project.

In an interview with WELT, Julia Alves, a lawyer from Montevideo who specializes in questions of medical use of cannabis, rates the project as positive in terms of fighting crime, but sees a need for improvement. "The legislation has not thought of patients who want access to cannabis products, nor of foreigners who want to use cannabis in a country where use is legal."

This is exactly what drives the IRCCA. At the end of November, experts presented a proposal to the Tourism Commission of the Chamber of Deputies that envisages further legalization for international tourists as well. According to "El Observador", Uruguay could attract 100,000 tourists a year in this way. Daniel Radio, secretary-general for drug policy (JND), told the newspaper: "I've always said that if someone goes to another country to drink whiskey, that's not alcohol tourism."

This would be very good news for the tourism industry, because it would also regulate the curiosity of non-Uruguayans to explore the cannabis world. And in the end, it would be another step towards the commercial use of state-grown cannabis.