Uruguay adds flower with 10% THC to its catalog

Uruguay's Institute for the Regulation and Control of Cannabis (IRCCA) has approved the marketing of a new variety of cannabis that will titrate to 10% and be sold in pharmacies in 2022.

While this 10% level remains moderate in relation to the reality of the cannabis market, it is much higher than those of Alpha and Beta, the varieties currently available in Uruguayan pharmacies, with 1% and 2% of THC respectively, whereas IRCCA had already authorized a limit of 9%.

The secretary general of the National Drug Council (JND), Daniel Radío, said it was a «very positive resolution» as cannabis sales in pharmacies had fallen considerably.

«We have over 42,000 people registered to buy [cannabis] in pharmacies and they weren't buying. I think with this, we're going to try to recapture that market, which could have gone to illicit trafficking or other forms of regulated market access,» he declared.

He continues, «People who don't buy at the pharmacy because they don't like it, don't give up consumption, but rather move on to another form of access. What we need to achieve is that people consume cannabis in the variants offered by the regulated market and not on the black market».

Supply problems continue to hamper the growth of the legal cannabis market in Uruguay. Aurora, through its local subsidiary ICC Labs, has recently announced that it is no longer producing for the Uruguayan recreational market, due to excessive government constraints.

«What's happening to us is that we've had a problem with pharmacy supplies,» explains Daniel Radío. «At the same time we didn't activate more pharmacies because we didn't have enough products, and at the same time the companies, with some degree of reason, complained that if we didn't activate more pharmacies, they wouldn't sell more; we were in a vicious circle. Now, we've decided to break out of this circle, [...] to demand more production from companies and create more pharmacies», he concluded.