Argentine Politician Creates Uproar After Tweeting Picture of Pot Plant

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An Argentine politician’s political career could go up in smoke after she tweeted a photo of a marijuana plant in her home in Buenos Aires.

After many of her 54,500 Twitter followers called her a “drug pusher,” Gabriela Cerruti is now facing calls to step down amid the scandal. She is a social affairs official in Buenos Aires.

For her part, the 46-year old politician said the whole thing was a big stunt intended to jump-start the debate over the legalization of marijuana, which neighboring Uruguay will soon do.

Uruguay’s proposal would create a National Cannabis Institute with the power to license individuals and companies to produce and sell marijuana for recreational, medicinal or industrial uses. It would foster marijuana growing clubs to provide the weed to their members. And most significantly, it would allow anyone to grow a limited amount of marijuana in their own homes, and possess marijuana for their own consumption.

We are losing the battle against drugs and crime in South America. Somebody has to be the first,” Uruguayan President José Mujica said.

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The photo posted on Cerruti’s Twitter account showed the alleged marijuana plant next to a pot of flowers.

“One was given to me by my mother, the other by (gay rights activist) Alex Freyrem, can you can guess which is which?” Cerruti said, according to the New York Daily News. “I thought it would be nice to publish the photo, but I will not play the innocent. I think we have to discuss the decriminalization of marijuana."

The comments made by the center-left New Encounter politician did little to deter the furor on the social media site and on television stations around the Southern Cone country.

Cerruti, a mother of two, said that the plant would never produce anything.