NewsLatin AmericaColombia takes the first steps to change the anti-drug policy

Colombia takes the first steps to change the anti-drug policy

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, is determined to transform the policy against illicit drugs. In the two weeks that he has been governing, he has emphasized stopping criminalizing the most vulnerable links in the chain, the coca growers, and focusing efforts on blocking the path of criminal organizations in the most profitable stages of the business. That does not mean, at least for now, a complete break with the allies or an immediate change of paradigm: a United States delegation, with whom it met this Tuesday in the Casa de Narino, ratified that the anti-narcotics strategy continues to be in the common schedule.

The meeting took place the same day that the Colombian Minister of Justice, Nestor Osuna, denied that the government has plans to decriminalize cocaine, which reaffirms that it is more of a turnaround than a complete rupture. “Cocaine is not going to be legalized in this government,” he said. “The intention is not to persecute peasants who live by growing cannabis or coca leaves by military or police means. The policy is to substitute crops and land where they can grow other products, ”he explained in a dialogue with EL PAIS. “Faced with consumption, the policy will be public health, not prohibitionism,” he added.

The precision of Minister Osuna could appease the concerns that arose after the declarations of the anti-drug head of the Petro government, Felipe Tascon, in an article in The Washington Post. “Drug traffickers know that their business depends on prohibition. If we regulate it like a public market, the big profits disappear, just like the drug dealers,” he said. The US newspaper indicated that the administration in Colombia was proposing to “end prohibition and launch a state-regulated cocaine market.”

From the day of his possession, Petro indicated that in his opinion the fight against drugs has failed. “The war on drugs strengthened the mafias and weakened the states,” he said. This Friday, at the police handover ceremony, he questioned the criminalization of growers and consumers. “Since when is a peasant who harvests coca leaves a criminal if he is a simple peasant who has nothing else to cultivate?” He asked in his speech. “Since when is a young man who uses drugs and should have a doctor or a psychologist by his side trying to overcome the weaknesses of the mind a criminal?” he added.

The Colombian government’s strategy to transform anti-drug policy also contemplates reinforcing air and maritime interdiction operations to stop the passage of illicit substances. “It is more effective to concentrate anti-drug activity on interdiction that could even solve problems of internal armed conflict to the extent that a territory ceases to be attractive for exporting cocaine,” explained the president at a security council in Quibdo (Choco).

In his view, drug trafficking has not only been one of the structural causes of violence in Colombia, but also of racism and inequality due to the lack of State presence, as he stated at a summit with mayors and governors of the Pacific, a one of the areas that is most disputed by illegal organizations. “And what is the response from Bogota, and from Washington? Well, fill this with soldiers. And the others [los grupos ilegales]they also arm themselves and those who are dying are black”, he said on the first trip after his possession.

After Tuesday’s meeting with the Colombian government, the director of the White House’s office of national drug control policy, Rahul Gupta, specified that “the Biden administration is in a new era on drug policy that is holistic , based on compassionate science and centered on people”. He said that the United States will continue to be Colombia’s ally and that “the discussions symbolize the importance of a shared responsibility. It is why President Biden is taking strong action to reduce drug use.” Those words coincide with the position of Petro and Osuna of having a different look at the fight against drugs, without eliminating it altogether.

Beyond this adjustment in the objectives of the struggle, Colombia seeks to lead an international discussion on the change of model, taking advantage of the leadership of the left in Latin America. “The president wants to raise in international organizations, in the medium or long term and always in concert with the international community, the possibility of a different drug policy,” the justice minister admitted to EL PAIS.

Tascon, the anti-drug expert who was part of the Petro splicing group, explained that they are seeking to have a “common cause between the cocaine-producing countries: Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, and those with the highest traffic: Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela and Brazil. . A strong core to change the failed paradigm of prohibition”. Colombia is already taking smaller steps, such as promoting a bill that seeks to legalize the recreational use of marijuana among adults, something that is already allowed in 19 states in the United States. From there, and from focusing the fight on the most profitable links in drug trafficking, to changing everything from a global focus to one of public health, there is a long way to go.

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Source: EL PAIS

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