Life in Uruguay: legal abortion and pot dealing

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Uruguayans used to call their country the Switzerland of Latin America, but its faded grey capital seems a bit more like Amsterdam now that its congress has legalized abortion and is drawing up plans to sell government-grown marijuana.

Both measures would be unthinkable in many other countries. Cuba is the only other nation in the region that makes first-trimester abortions accessible to all women, and no country in the world produces and sells pot for drug users to enjoy.

But President Jose "Pepe" Mujica, a flower-farming former leftist guerrilla, vowed to sign whatever bill congress could settle on that can minimize the 30,000 illegal abortions his government says Uruguayan women suffer annually.
And while lawmakers have yet to debate pot sales, Mujica's ruling Broad Front coalition staked its ground in August by openly declaring that the drug war has failed. Smoking pot — if not growing and selling it — is already legal in Uruguay, and supplying the weed is a $30 million business, the government said.