Pharmacies in Uruguay to start selling pot next week

Uruguay will allow pharmacies to sell marijuana starting next Wednesday in the final phase of a law making the small South American country the first in the world to legalize and regulate pot from production to sale.

Under a law approved in 2013, Uruguayans have been allowed to grow their own pot and smoke it in clubs.

But working out a timetable for pharmacies to sell it -- the third and last conduit called for in the legislation -- proved more tricky. This has now been resolved, the state agency regulating marijuana said in a statement today.

To buy it in pharmacies people have to sign up on a registry, and so far 4,700 have done so. Uruguay's total population is 3.4 million.
 

Pot smokers can buy a maximum of 40 grams a month.

Under the first phase of the 2013 law, more than 6,600 growers have registered to produce the weed, and 51 smokers' clubs have been authorized.