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NEW YORK — Uruguay is considering using medical marijuana to treat prison inmates addicted to a crude and cheap form of cocaine, one of the country’s top health officials said Thursday at the United Nations.
The South American country made headlines last year when it became the first in the world to legalize the sale of marijuana. Now, as Uruguay prepares to implement its pioneering legislation, health leaders are considering possible uses for medical forms of marijuana — including in prisons, where many of the incarcerated are addicted to drugs.
“Jail is not a very suitable place for someone to safely overcome drug addiction,” Leonel Briozzo, the country’s undersecretary for public health, said in an event at the U.N. Briozzo called for “new strategies for drug addiction treatment, especially for harder drugs like ‘pasta base.’ And in that sense, we harbor a possible hope that medical marijuana can play a role in this as well.”
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