by Rosario Queirolo, Lorena Repetto, Joaquín Alonso, Eliana Álvarez, Belén Sotto and Mafalda Pardal

Based on a qualitative design, our article recently published in Policy & Politics analyses the intended and unintended effects of the regulation of cannabis in Uruguay over the last ten years, and identifies the distance between its design and implementation. 

The results are grouped into four key points: 

1-      The access mechanisms (homegrowing, cannabis social clubs (CSCs) and pharmacies) and the mandatory registry, designed for preventing the increase in cannabis consumption, had the unintended effect of excluding various types of users from the legal market. Examples include:  

• lower socioeconomic level users who cannot afford expensive memberships to CSCs or buying at a pharmacy; 

• those who live further away from urban areas where legal selling points are primarily located 

• younger users, who do not always meet the formal requirements for registration.  

Thus, the regulation has pushed many cannabis users to seek supply via the illicit and grey markets. 

2-      The controlled prices in pharmacies, designed for competing with illicit market prices, provided little incentive to new pharmacies to join the dispensation system, due to the low profit margin, resulting in limited coverage across the country. 

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