Politics

Iceland Gets Cooler With Proposal to Legalize Cannabis

Published on September 22, 2017 · Last updated July 28, 2020
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Cannabis legalization could be making its way to the beautiful country of Iceland, as a member of Parliament for Viðreisn, or The Reform Party, has proposed a bill for the legalization of adult-use cannabis.

Pawel Bartozek, a Reform Party MP, has put forth a bill in Parliament that would establish a marketplace for recreational cannabis. The bill seeks to set up rules on production and sales, and decriminalize cannabis consumption.

According to the Bartozek’s personal website, he based his legalization bill on the handbook How to Regulate Cannabis: A Practical Guide, released by the UK advocate group Transform.

If passed, Bartozek’s bill would legalize cannabis production, sales, and consumption by citizens 20 and older, while restricting cannabis packaging to plain gray containers and forbidding all cannabis advertising.

“I hope that the bill will be an icebreaker that spurs the debate and that it will ultimately lead to us ceasing the punishment of people for consuming this specific substance,” Pawel told the Iceland Review.

On his website, Bartozek wrote that decriminalization would be progress, “but if the production and sale remains illegal, we miss the opportunity to control access, protect children and minors, and to tax consumption.”

So far, the bill has gained some support in the Parliament, as Sigrún Ingibjörg Gísladóttir, a fellow member of Viðreisn, and two members of the Pirate Party, Gunnar Hrafn Jónsson and Jón Þór Ólafsson.

This is a developing story, stay tuned.

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Gage Peake
Gage Peake
Gage Peake is a former staff writer for Leafly, where he specialized in data journalism, sports, and breaking news coverage. He's a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
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