WHILE cannabis was reclassified from a Class C to a Class B drug in Britain in 2009, lawmakers in other parts of the world have moved to soften policy around the substance.
Uruguay last year became the first country in the world to make it legal to grow, sell and consume marijuana.
The law allows registered Uruguayans over 18 to buy up to 40g of the drug every month and is aimed at tackling the power of drug cartels.
In 2012, American voters in Colorado and Washington State backed laws which legalised the recreational use of cannabis.
Long queues formed as the first state-licensed cannabis outlets in Colorado opened their doors in January.
That month, the state made £1.2 million in taxes from cannabis sales.
In Holland, cannabis has never been formally legalised, however the purchase and consumption of small amounts of the drug have been informally permitted since 1976. There are about 700 licensed coffee shops which sell cannabis in the country.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article