First period

B E J cannabis related events were organised by civil society members. More specifically, the four events analysed are: the Informal Dialogues on drug policy of February 2011, the global marihuana march of May 2011 and 2012, and the National Debate on Drugs of 2011.

As already introduced (see section 7.3.), the Informal Dialogues on Drug Policy is a periodic event organised in different countries of the world since 2004 by the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA) and the Transnational Institute (TNI). In Latin America, it has been arranged roughly annually since 2007. In terms of Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, it is a venue type of activity, for elite networking of like-minded political actors, creating alternative exchange platforms about drug policy reform in order to skew the rule of silence of the War on Words international forums. It aims to encourage free exchange of ideas and ensures confidentiality. In order to respect this confidentiality agreement about the participants, here, only the organisers are considered. By 2011, this activity was co-sponsored by TNI, WOLA and the National Drugs Secretary, hence, it is understood

However, in my interviews and participant observation, I found that regarding the content of this forum, and unlike issues such as harm reduction strategies, cannabis regulation was a relatively marginal topic on the agenda.

The National Debate on Drugs of 2011 was a congress-like activity organised in the Montevideo city hall by Proderechos, El Abrojo and IELSUR and sponsored by the National Drugs Secretary. None of these three organisations can be characterised as orthodox cannabis activism. Proderechos had a wide political agenda related to new rights issues, mainly abortion regulation, LGTBI rights and drug policy reform, ultimately aimed at updating the political repertoire. El Abrojo and IELSUR are illustrative examples of the Human Rights shift towards the illegal drugs problems already described (section 8.3.). Created in 1984 and 1988 respectively, IELSUR and El Abrojo were direct reactions to the Uruguayan dictatorship, aimed at denouncing Human Rights violations committed during this period. Only later did they incorporate drug policy into their agenda. Furthermore, with the opening of a drugs programme in 1995, El Abrojo became a key policy transfer actor of the Harm Reduction approach. Although sympathetic to the cause, for both organisations, cannabis legalisation was not a priority. Unlike the Informal Dialogues and the National Debate on Drugs, cannabis legalisation was the explicit target of the global marijuana march of May 2011 and 2012. As introduced at the beginning of this thesis (see section 5.1.) the global marijuana march is an annual rally for cannabis legalisation held every May at different locations across the globe since 1999. It was around this happening that the first three cannabis activism organisations were created in Uruguay, conforming a new type of political actor: the formerly introduced Proderechos Asociación de Estudios del Cannabis AECU C “ A Liberalisación del Cannabis [Cannabis Liberalisation]. According to the data gathered, although part of the coalition, the relationship between these three organisations was, in most cases, tense. Disagreements and disputes about how and where to organise this march were frequent. As a case in point, whereas in 2011 Proderechos and AECU were the main organisers of the global marihuana march, for 2012 Cannabis Liberalisation was the only one sponsoring the event. Hence, Cannabis Liberalisation appears in the diagram (Figure 10), but no links connect this actor with the coalition.

Lastly, Sebastian Sabini, a young member of parliament from the Frente Amplio -and more specifically, M - was the only legislative power representative assisting at these events during the first period considered, from February 2011 to Jun 2012. As the Figure 10 below shows, during

Figure 10. Network analysis first period (Feb. 2011 - Jun 2012)

REFERENCES

National civil society Legislative power Executive power International civil society Political parties

What the network diagram allows is to provide further evidence of the different roles performed within the AECU

Proderechos brokered with political and academic actors in the coalition, and Cannabis Liberalisation had a more isolated position, more strictly defined by their organisation of the Global Marijuana March. The wide brokerage led by Proderechos was partly possible because of the Open Society Foundation funding, which enhanced Proderechos bbying and organisational capabilities. As I showed in Chapter Five, together these organisations formed a new type of political actor directly

M

agreed that cannabis self-cultivation should be included as the main policy tool in a new law proposal. On top of these three activism, identified as lying within the of the coalition, harm reduction related organisations such as El Abrojo and IELSUR also began to get involved in the process, but from a satellite position.

Although evidence was found of international civil society involvement in the Coalition, their role in cannabis regulation events was still very limited at this period. More particularly, the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA) and Transnational Institute (TNI) lobbied the political system directly (both legislative and executive power) and kept somewhat unengaged with national civil society. Lastly, as evident in the Figure 10, among the political system, only one legislative member (Sebastián Sabini) stood out as a political entrepreneur for cannabis regulation. He was the only

representative of the legislative power present in cannabis related activities, and he was one of the main promoters of the cannabis regulation law presented in parliament during this period. According to the data gathered, he had the important virtue of brokering between dissimilar actors as cannabis activists, international civil society, Frente Amplio and non-Frente Amplio legislators. Sebastian Sabini

5.1.) among the political establishment by others (Sempol, 2013)

Nevertheless, it is not only the presence, but also the absence of actors in the network that can be significant. Thus, besides the individual brokerage of Sabini with the new rights activism, political party groups were not yet involved in the coalition between February 2011 to June 2012, which confirms the role of cannabis activism as a political start up (section 5.2.) and the difficulties faced in introducing

the repertoire.