Will Carless

Uruguay’s Year In Weed: 3 Big Successes, 3 Burning Questions

Wasn’t Uruguay supposed to become a marijuana capital of the south? Here’s why that hasn’t happened, just yet.

A woman observes inspects a marijuana plant with a magnifying glass during the Expo Cannabis fair in Montevideo, Uruguay, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2014. After state regulation of the production and sale of marijuana, Uruguay had its first cannabis expo with stands selling seeds, marijuana growing technology, conferences and cultivation techniques

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WATCH: This Is What ‘Occupy’ Looks Like In A Rio Slum

Thousands of poor Brazilians are sheltering in squalid quarters in an abandoned plastics factory in the Alemao favela complex because they say their slum became too expensive.

A homeless man sits on a sofa where houses were demolished in the Favela do Metro shantytown in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012. Residents of communities like Metro, located on the surroundings of the Maracana stadium, are being pushed out of their homes to make way for new roads, Olympic venues, and other projects as part of preparations to host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — They call it an invasion. In the early hours of March 23, hundreds of people from this city’s massive Alemao complex of shantytowns streamed into a closed-down factory on one of the slum’s main streets. The former Tuffy Habib factory, a plastics plant owned by a Brazilian businessman of the same name, ceased

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5 Things To Learn From The Man In Charge Of Uruguay’s Weed

Interview: Drug czar Julio Calzada tries to set the record straight on the little South American country’s bold but mysterious marijuana experiment.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Julio Calzada is the top drug official in the little nation of Uruguay, which has gained notoriety over the last year for becoming the first country to legalize the cultivation, sale and consumption of marijuana. Calzada, whose party faces a tough re-election battle on Oct. 26, sat down with GlobalPost this week to discuss

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The Truth About Pot In Uruguay

There’s a lot of outrageous buzz about the country’s marijuana revolution. Let’s take a sober look at some rather implausible claims.

Uruguay Marijuana

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Uruguay has become the Great Green Hope for legal marijuana proponents across the globe. Pot is now all-but-completely legal in this little South American country, and the government has started rolling out the rules and bureaucracy for its extraordinary experiment. But, as pot proponents in the United States and

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Buenos Aires Victims Urge Pope Francis To Focus On Sex Abuse In His Home City

Pope Francis has promised not to tolerate more sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Argentine victims wish the former Buenos Aires archbishop had taken that stance years ago.

Pope Francis meets ambassadors to the Holy See, at the Vatican, Monday, Jan. 13, 2014. Pope Francis on Monday criticized abortion as evidence of a "throwaway culture" that wastes people as well as food, saying such a mentality is a threat to world peace. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, Pool)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Pope Francis made headlines last month when he announced the Vatican will take a “zero tolerance” policy toward sexual abuse in the church. In a historic move, Francis also promised to celebrate mass in Italy in June with several victims of sexual abuse, a gesture lauded for its significance in helping to overcome

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Uruguay Is Struggling To Make Legal Weed That Can Compete With The Illegal Stuff

Illicit high-grade Uruguayan marijuana is so copious the local press is calling it a ‘cannabis spring.’

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — The big news in Uruguay right now is the release of the government’s long-awaited regulations for legally growing, selling and using marijuana. The rules limit personal pot cultivation to six plants and allow adult residents to buy 10 grams of government-sanctioned weed per week. (Not that any official marijuana has so far

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The Next Hotbed For Medical Marijuana Research

Researching medicinal weed in the US is a pain in the butt. Cue Uruguay.

A marijuana grower, checks the leaves of his marijuana plants for fungus. The Texas House has cleared major obstacles in the push for full lagalization. (AP Photo)

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — It ain’t easy to study the positive effects of pot in the United States. First, there’s the legality issue. While medicinal marijuana is now legal in more than 20 states, the federal government still considers pot illegal, which means scientists can’t just give it to volunteers and measure whether it makes them feel

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