As the first European country to legalize cannabis, Luxembourg has called on other European countries to relax their drug laws, specifically cannabis production and consumption. According to the European state, the continent’s drug policy has not worked over the last few decades, and forbidding everything made it more attractive for people to find new ways of skirting laws.

The country’s relaxed laws will see residents over 18 years old able to buy cannabis for recreational use starting from 2020. The state will establish a cannabis agency to regulate all production and distribution. What’s more, minors between ages 12 and 17 will not face criminal charges if caught in possession of five grams or less of the drug. However, those who break the law will receive harsh penalties.

Already the first country in the world to legalize recreational use of marijuana, Uruguay now aims to go further by becoming the first in Latin America to export it for medicinal purposes.

It's taken a year to get to this point but in Nueva Helvecia -- 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of the capital Montevideo -- the first harvest is ready to be sent abroad.

Employees of the U.S. company Fotmer -- the only one currently licenced to export -- are cutting and drying the plant before it is exported to Europe, Canada and Australia.

In taking this step, Uruguay is joining the ranks of medicinal marijuana exporters dominated by the United Kingdom, which according to United Nations data from 2016 had cornered more than two thirds of the market.

Serious marijuana money is starting to show up in Uruguay.

Almost six years after the South American country of 3.4 million people legalized cannabis, investors are betting Uruguay can become an export hub for medical marijuana as the industry expands around the world.

Silverpeak Life Sciences Uruguay Inc, one of the largest companies in the country’s nascent medical marijuana industry, is in talks with investment bankers to raise US$35 million this year to quadruple production and build a larger extraction lab in 2020, according to chief executive officer and U.S. cannabis investor Jordan Lewis.

"Our planned and desired expansion would be about 25 tons next year and that should push us above US$100 million in revenue," Lewis said.

When he was younger, the only thing that Enrique Morales knew about marijuana was that folks smoked it to get high.

Today, the former driver is a horticulturist on a cannabis plantation about 80 miles west of the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo, and he says drops of marijuana oil have been key to treating his mother's osteoarthritis.

"My perception has now changed. It is a plant that has a lot of properties," he said.

The company that owns the plantation, Fotmer SA, is now part of a flourishing medical cannabis industry in Uruguay.

The country got a head start on competitors in December 2013 when it became the first in the world to regulate the cannabis market from growing to purchase, a move that has attracted a wave of investment.

Aurora Cannabis Inc. (NYSE: ACB) (TSX: ACB) (Frankfurt: 21P; WKN: A1C4WM) and ICC Labs Inc. (ICC) (TSX-V: ICC) are pleased to announce that Aurora has received, from its consortium of lenders led by Bank of Montreal (collectively, the Lenders), consent and approval as required under its credit agreement with the Lenders to the previously announced plan of arrangement (the Arrangement) between ICC and Aurora. Subject to the terms and conditions of the arrangement agreement dated September 8, 2018 (the Arrangement Agreement), Aurora will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares (ICC Shares) of ICC.

The underlying intention of its legalization policies is to take business away from the contintent’s deadly narco businesses.

Uruguay’s bid to allow the sale of recreational marijuana in pharmacies, under its revolutionary law that fully legalized the production, sale and consumption of marijuana in 2013, is due to come into force this month.

Becoming the first country in the world to uphold such drug policies, Uruguay’s intentions, tabled under the leadership of leftist guerrilla-turned-former President Jose Mujica, is to take business away from the contintent’s deadly narco businesses.

Nick Clegg has warned of the risks of 'unfettered commercialisation', but how could the UK build a model that works for both small and large enterprises?

Former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg claimed on Friday that legalising cannabis in the UK would improve public , but warned of the “risks of unfettered commercialisation”.

In doing so, Mr Clegg highlighted the potential tension between building a model that works for health and one that works for business.

So what might that model look like and what could it mean for UK business?

Uruguay‘s envoy to Ottawa says his small South American country has opened up some breathing room for marijuana legalization within international treaties that have outlawed recreational pot for decades.

Ambassador Martin Vidal credits his country, the first to legalize recreational cannabis at a national level, as something of a trailblazer for countries like Canada that are planning to embark on the same path.

Uruguay has become the first country to completely legalise cannabis.

The country became the first place in the world to permit the professional cultivation of marijuana plants in 2014 and from July new legislation it will be legal to sell it over the counter.

The move will make it the first country in the entire world where anyone can buy or sell the drug.

In countries who are more famous for their lax approach to cannabis, such as the Netherlands, the drug remains technically illegal even if the law is not enforced and local authorities will grant licences to shops and cafes selling it.

Uruguay has begun collecting names of people who wish to buy cannabis for recreational use, as the it prepares to become the first country on Earth to sell state-grown dope through a network of drugstores. 

Uruguayan citizens, or permanent residents in the country, wishing to avail of the service began signing up to the state’s weed register on Tuesday. This is the final step in a three-stage process which has already seen pot for recreational use became legal.  

The country adopted a law in December 2013 which provided three avenues for smokers wishing to consume cannabis without the risk of running into trouble with the law.