Tourists Already Toke in Uruguay, Now the Country Might Finally Let Them Buy

Uruguay is once again weighing the possibility of allowing tourists and non-residents over 18 who visit the South American nation to buy legal cannabis even if they aren’t citizens.

The executive director of IRCCA (the Institute for the Regulation and Control of Cannabis), Martín Rodríguez, confirmed that the agency is analyzing this option to strengthen the country’s legal cannabis market, expand the reach of the formal market, and weaken the illicit one.

Currently, only people with permanent residency or a Uruguayan ID card can access regulated sales in pharmacies, which today offer four varieties: ALFA, BETA, GAMMA, and ÉPSILON.

The underlying issue, however, goes beyond attracting visitors: it’s tied to the original goals of the country’s regulatory framework.

Why does Uruguay want to legalize cannabis for tourists?

Uruguay moved past the debate over whether to regulate cannabis a long time ago: it regulated it, implemented it, and fine-tuned a system that, with all its nuances, delivered concrete results. A network of clubs, pharmacies, and home growers took shape; public information campaigns were strengthened; and a policy grounded in harm reduction and state control of the supply chain became firmly established.

As Martín Rodríguez explained, the regulatory framework “has been solidifying over the years,” but the model is now hitting a limit: what has been achieved so far is no longer enough to keep pushing back the illicit market or to close the access gaps left by the original law.

In an interview with Canal 10, the director asked: “What do we need to do so cannabis regulation continues fulfilling its goals more effectively?” And he answered his own question: “One of the key objectives here is to expand the reach of the formal market,  to keep replacing the illegal or irregular market with a regulated one,” as reported by SwissInfo.

That said, it’s undeniable that cannabis tourism can operate as a powerful engine for economic activity, helping curb the illicit market and—true to form—attract even more tourism. Some places with strong adult-use markets, such as California or Colorado, have already rolled out cannabis-sales programs for tourists, and the results have been more than promising: increased activity in hospitality, dining, cultural events, and higher state revenue.

But the measure isn’t aimed solely at cannabis tourism. In Uruguay, many non-residents—who are not necessarily tourists—also cannot legally access cannabis in pharmacies. Think of people who come for the summer season and stay a few months, those who live abroad but travel to visit family, or anyone passing through for work, school, or any other reason. As long as your legal residence is outside Uruguay, you cannot buy regulated cannabis in pharmacies.

In 2013, under the administration of José Mujica, Uruguay passed Law 19.172, the first state-regulated adult-use cannabis market in the world. Since then, the country has pursued a policy combining state control, traceability, risk reduction, and supervised access mechanisms. More than twelve years after its approval, the model has shown progress: it consolidated an expanding formal market, reduced part of the illicit circuit, and created an unprecedented cultivation, production, and retail system at the global level.

But the key question Rodríguez poses is this: what happens with tourists or non-residents over 18 who arrive in Uruguay and want or need cannabis but have no legal way to obtain it? The answer is simple: they turn to the illicit market.

Rodríguez said it clearly: “Bringing foreigners into the system goes straight to the heart of the discussion,” because people who visit Uruguay and want to use cannabis are already doing so, they’re just forced to rely on the unregulated market. That’s why “this debate is crucial when thinking about the next step in expanding coverage,” the official said.

The logic behind the proposal is straightforward: just as Uruguayan residents have the right to access the regulated system, visitors should also have a safe, controlled, and traceable way to do so, without being pushed into a parallel market that the law has always aimed to shrink.

How can you get cannabis if you’re not Uruguayan? The policy that never arrived

Right now, recreational access is limited to three pathways: registered home cultivation, membership-based clubs, and pharmacy sales. All of these require prior registration and are only available to adults who are Uruguayan residents or citizens.

Membership clubs, by law, cannot admit occasional buyers or offer flowers to anyone who isn’t a registered member. And pharmacies —even if they wanted to sell to tourists— can’t do it either: the regulations require being registered as a resident, with no exceptions.

The idea of granting access to tourists isn’t new. In 2021, Daniel Radío —then Secretary-General of the National Drug Secretariat and president of IRCCA— was already discussing allowing foreign visitors to buy legal cannabis as “an added incentive for attracting tourists” and as “a bit of extra revenue.”

Months later, in a conversation with El País, he said he wanted to implement cannabis tourism “as soon as possible to start testing what happens” and suggested that, in the future, it will seem obvious that people can “have a glass of wine or smoke cannabis” when they travel, but that for now, society is still dealing with “the remnants and aftershocks of prohibition.”

However, that momentum never translated into a concrete reform: Law 19.172 was never amended, no specific registry for non-residents was created, and cannabis sales to tourists were never implemented.

In 2022, the issue returned to Parliament through a bill proposing that “non-residents who are legally in the territory of the Republic” be allowed, during their stay, to access the cannabis sales mechanisms authorized under the 2013 law. The debate revealed both support and resistance within the governing coalition at the time and showed that political consensus still wasn’t strong enough to fully open the door to cannabis tourism.

During that discussion, lawmakers brought numbers to the table: with 3.4 million inhabitants and more than 1.5 million foreign tourists in just nine months, a study by the consulting firm Equipos estimated that about “100,000 people per year […] would enter the tourism segment to consume cannabis if that door were opened.” That would translate into as much as 1,470 kilograms (about 1.47 metric tons) of additional annual demand, based on the 15 grams per month allowed under the regulated system.

At the time, Broad Front lawmaker Eduardo Antonini argued in favor of an equal-access system for residents and non-residents, except for home cultivation, given its permanent nature, and warned that the current exclusion pushes many visitors toward the illicit market “with the associated risks.”

Dispensary centers, temporary registries, and the questions everyone is asking

There are two new elements shaping the debate. On one hand, IRCCA is no longer talking only about granting access to tourists, it’s also considering the possibility of creating “sales centers beyond pharmacies”. This is something that would require amending the section of Law 19.172 that placed all retail sales exclusively in the hands of pharmacies.

“We clearly need to amend that part of the law so the regulator, IRCCA, can choose the best mechanisms for commercializing cannabis in addition to pharmacies,” Rodríguez said.

On the other hand, the discussion now overlaps with older proposals that were never implemented, such as creating temporary registries for tourists —which would expire once they leave the country— or allowing licensed tourism businesses to partner with cannabis clubs and offer short-term memberships to their guests. Antonini had supported this idea as a way to “correct an inequality” and boost the local economy.

None of this is settled: the new administration under Yamandú Orsi, along with IRCCA led by Rodríguez, will have to translate these options into concrete legislative language, negotiate parliamentary majorities, and only then determine what access for non-residents will look like.

What opening access to tourists and non-residents could mean

If Uruguay ultimately allows tourists and non-residents to legally purchase adult-use cannabis, the change can be understood on several levels:

• Economically, it would mean capturing a segment of cannabis tourism that already exists worldwide and generates about USD 17 billion a year across flower, derivatives, experiences, and related services in countries like the United States.
• From a health and safety perspective, it would offer standardized, traceable products to people who already consume but currently have no guarantees regarding quality or origin,  and who, in the meantime, end up fueling the illicit market.
• And in terms of rights, it echoes Radío’s concern over a “built-in inequality” in a law that allows residents to consume through regulated channels while pushing visitors into the very market the regulation sought to dismantle.

Twelve years after the law championed by former President Mujica —and after several failed attempts to open the door to visitors— IRCCA’s latest move may finally start to take shape. Under Orsi’s new administration, it suggests that Uruguay does not intend to remain halfway between regulatory experiment and a mature model capable of including those who set foot in the country for just a few days or a few months.

The question now is whether 2025 will finally be the year when “cannabis tourism” stops being a headline and becomes an everyday reality or whether sales to non-residents will once again remain the regulation’s biggest unfinished promise, as well as a missed opportunity to further undercut the illicit market.

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