International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 2, Winter 2018/Spring 2019 | Page 41

International Journal on Criminology
not allowed to sell what they produce? The risk of legally produced cannabis from
home growers, CSCs, and the state being redirected to the black market is a real
one, especially when the legal market falls far short of meeting national demand.
Seizures of cannabis plants and seeds registered by the UNODC between 2010 and
2014 further suggest that such diversion of cannabis does exist, as shown by the
following table:
Seizures of Cannabis Plants and Seeds in Uruguay, 2010-2014
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Cannabis plants (items) 71.00 126.00 154.00 269.00 459.00
Cannabis seed (grams) 30.00 30.00 10.00 671.00 38,673.00
Source: UNODC-ARQ
But the diversion of legally produced cannabis appears to be marginal in
Uruguay, despite rumors surrounding one Cannabis Social Club manager who, it
is claimed, also sold cannabis on the black market. 14 Yet a number of indicators,
such as the proliferation of cannabis-growing equipment and seeds that can be
seen in the increasing number of grow shops in the center of the capital, 15 as well
as neighborhood denunciations (50,000 in the space of 3 years), suggest that an
illegal domestic production sector has developed, operating in the shadows of the
legal sector.
These ways of "working round" the new legislation appear mainly to involve
consumers rather than criminal groups. 16 Diverting production in this way is subject
to administrative sanction in the case of home growers/consumers who fail to
register as such, and to criminal sanction if crops are intended to supply the illegal
market. In both cases, the plants are destroyed. Cannabis seeds remain legal but,
depending on the context, may be taken as evidence, as explained by one magistrate
in an interview. 17
Turning to state-controlled cannabis production for sale in pharmacies, the
very strict control procedures surrounding the process appear to make any redirection
of the product into the black market impossible. Prior to going into operation,
the two private firms selected, International Cannabis Corporation and SIMByosis
, were subjected to painstaking vetting procedures. These included, significantly,
working together with the Uruguayan financial intelligence unit (UIAF), on their
14 Interview, Montevideo, September 2015
15 Observation notes, 2016.
16 CANNALEX team interview with Milton Romani, Montevideo, December 2016: "a marginal
amount is diverted, and it is the consumers doing it, not the criminal groups, which, while not
perfect, does still provide competition against the cannabis traffickers."
17 Interview with a Uruguayan magistrate.
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