Uruguayan pharmacies will start selling cannabis
Will they drive street dealers out of business?
ON THE outskirts of Libertad, a small town an hour’s drive from Montevideo, barbed wire and guard towers surround a ten-hectare plot of state-owned land. Inside, greenhouses shelter thousands of marijuana plants. These belong to ICC and Simbiosys, the two firms licensed by Uruguay’s government to grow cannabis for recreational use. Uruguayans will soon be able to sample their product. Since May 2nd they have been able to register at the post office as prospective customers for the corporate weed, which will be sold through pharmacies from July.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “Chemists v criminals”
From the May 6th 2017 edition
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