Citing the complete failure of the so-called “war on drugs” that has sought to criminalize the growing, selling, possession and consumption of marijuana across both North and South America, the government of Uruguay is now poised to fully legalize the pot industry within its own borders.

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A bill in the nation’s lower house of Congress was passed late Wednesday night and is now headed for the upper chamber where it is expected to pass. Uruguay’s president, José Mujica, supports the measure, though he says he never tried marijuana himself.

There has been much talk in recent years among the Latin America countries about updating government attitudes towards drugs after decades of what critics see as a failed “drug war” which has cost billions of dollars, resulted in enormous bloodshed, and done nothing to end the illicit drug trade.

“Uruguay appears poised, in the weeks ahead, to become the first nation in modern times to create a legal, regulated framework for marijuana,” John Walsh, a drug policy expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, explained to the Associated Press. “In doing so, Uruguay will be bravely taking a leading role in establishing and testing a compelling alternative to the prohibitionist paradigm.”