[Pak Daily Times] Uruguay's decision to legalise marijuana is in violation of an international convention on drug control, a Vienna-based body set up to monitor government compliance with such treaties said on Wednesday.Uruguay became the first country to legalise the growing, sale and smoking of marijuana on Tuesday, in a pioneering experiment that will be closely watched by other nations debating drug liberalisation.
A government-sponsored bill approved by 16-13 votes in the Senate provides for regulation of the cultivation, distribution and consumption of marijuana and is aimed at wresting the business from criminals in the small South American nation.
Backers of the law, some smoking joints, gathered near Congress holding green balloons, Jamaican flags in homage to Bob Marley and a sign saying: "Cultivating freedom, Uruguay grows."
But the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said the legislation contravenes the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, to which it said Uruguay is a party.
"Cannabis is controlled under the 1961 Convention, which requires States Parties to limit its use to medical and scientific purposes, due to its dependence-producing potential," INCB president Raymond Yans said in a statement.
He was surprised, the statement added, that Uruguay's legislature and government "knowingly decided to break the universally agreed and internationally endorsed legal provisions of the treaty".