Uruguay to Harvest State-Commissioned Legal Cannabis

Uruguay is currently making history by successfully harvesting the world’s first state-commissioned crop of cannabis.

According to The Guardian, Guillermo Delmonte, CEO of the firm known as Cannabis Corp, is growing cannabis for the government of Uruguay. He is currently growing 3,000 cannabis plants, and plans to add 1,000 more and another greenhouse in the coming months.

This month, his crop will be harvested and sold at pharmacies around the country, in the first-ever country-wide and completely sanctioned medical cannabis program that the world has ever seen. In addition to this, Uruguay still has very lenient policies on cannabis in general. Anyone over 18 is allowed to grow it. However, they hope that most people will go to pharmacies because the cannabis there will be tested for purity and quality, grown with care and pharmacists will be able to advise on how to properly medicate with cannabis. Patients will be able to buy up to 40g a month for personal use.

“South America’s changing, just like the USA,” Delmonte told The Guardian. “Colombia is having a license for medical cannabis. Chile is also growing it. All because of Uruguay,” he added mentioning that he is hoping to move into and work with Chile as well.

“Here we get a lot from Paraguay and they do not just use the flower, but the whole plant and they put in other things that are not good. So our product will be much better—safer—than that. It will also be cheaper.” He mentioned that cannabis sells for about $3 a gram on the black market, but will sell for $1 a gram in pharmacies.

Just like the U.S. watched Colorado and other legal states as they pioneered legalization, the whole world will surely have their eyes on Uruguay as they make this landmark move, and other South American countries are already poised to follow suite.