Uruguay in plan to legalise marijuana Uruguay's leftist government has announced plans to legalise marijuana in a bid to halt rising crime. The announcement, by the government of veteran former rebel leader José Mujica, would put production and distribution to registered users in the hands of the state, making Uruguay the first country in the world to grow and supply cannabis. "We think the prohibition of certain drugs is creating more problems for society than the drugs themselves," Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro, the defence minister, told a news conference presenting the measure as part of a broader crime-fighting plan. The government believes legalising cannabis will undermine a business worth some $75m a year and stop people having to buy from dealers who are also pushing harder drugs such as "paco," a highly addictive byproduct of the cocaine-making process. Marijuana possession is already decriminalised in Uruguay, one of Latin America's least socially conservative countries, and even the Archbishop of Montevideo, Nicolás Cotugno, has come out in favour of initiatives to legalise cannabis cultivation for personal use. The issue of legalisation has entered the US election campaign as a growing number of voters approve of the move and Colorado, a state that could be key to Barack Obama's November re-election hopes, prepares for a ballot on ending prohibition. The issue has been raised elsewhere in drugs-blighted Latin America but most initiatives to date have been from rightwing or centre-right governments. Felipe Calderón, who is battling Mexico's ruthless drugs cartels, has talked of seeking "market alternatives," which commentators take to mean legalisation. Juan Manuel Santos, in cocaine-producing Colombia, has called for legalisation to help combat the traffic of hard drugs, as has Guatemala's Otto Pérez Molina. In Britain, the government has moved in the opposite direction, upgrading cannabis to a Class B from a Class C drug in 2008. Uruguay's pot proposal has to be approved by Congress but Julio Calzada, secretary-general of the National Drugs Board in Uruguay, said: "We have hopes that legislators from all four parties [represented in Congress] can support this measure." If so, marijuana would join other state monopolies, including in the oil and gas, telecoms and electricity and utilities sectors. Mr Calzada said Uruguay would grow the cannabis but had not yet decided where it would be sold. The drug would probably be restricted to Uruguayans "so as not to fuel drug tourism," he added. Uruguay would take care "not to affect neighbouring countries or to be accused as a kind of international drugs making and distributing centre," Mr Fernández Huidobro added.