This country calls time on the 'war on drugs'

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https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/21/americas/colombia-marijuana-bill-war-on-drugs-intl-cmd/index.html

Bogotà, Colombia (CNN)It's the home of notorious drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, and the origin of legendary Santa Marta Gold -- once the most sought-after varieties of weed in the United States -- named after Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range.

For many, Colombia is synonymous with drug cartels and narco-traffickers. It is one of the largest narcotics producers in the world -- last year, the US government estimated was producing over one million kilograms of cocaine, the highest in the world and more than the two closest nations, Peru and Bolivia, combined. So when the South American country's new president says he intends to regulate the use of illegal substances -- or at least some of them -- the world listens.
"It is time to accept that the war on drugs has been a complete failure," Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced during his inauguration festivities earlier this month, commenting on a bill his administration recently presented to legalize recreational marijuana to Congress.
Colombia's law already allows the production of cannabis for medical purposes, mostly to be exported to foreign markets like the United States and Canada, but supporters of the new legislation believe that only legalizing recreational cannabis can push thousands of farmers away from drug trafficking and into the legal trade.
To this day, the Colombian state faces challenges over control of its territory by a variety of criminal actors, from former left-wing guerrillas and paramilitaries to narco-cartels and organized crime syndicates. Drug trafficking is a powerful source of revenue for these outlaws, and over the past 50 years public authorities have pushed a prohibitionist agenda, banning the trade and consumption of drugs in order to hit the criminals in their pockets. But the stream of illegal drugs never ceased.

"We will never achieve peace in Colombia until we regulate drug trafficking," said Senator Gustavo Bolivar, one of the signatories of the new bill and a close ally of the new president.
"Not even the United States, with all their might and money, could win the war on drugs... Right now, Colombia produces more drugs than when Pablo Escobar was alive, there are more consumers, more farmers. The drug trade is growing despite the money we invest in fighting it, and the thousands of deaths we suffer," said Bolivar, who recently traveled to Colorado for a firsthand look at the economic benefits of legalizing weed.
In an interview, Bolivar told CNN it was hypocritical of the United States to legalize marijuana at home, and supporting drug wars abroad such as in Colombia, where Washington sends millions of dollars every year to arm and train Colombian forces in their struggle against the cartels.
A landmark report from the Truth Commission, an interdisciplinary panel tasked to investigate over 50 years of civil conflict in Colombia, found that drug trafficking helped prolong the conflict despite almost $8 billion in military aid from the US to Colombia. At least 260,000 Colombians, the vast majority civilians, were killed in the violence.

The campaign to legalize weed in Colombia unites left-wing senators like Bolivar with civil society organizations and deep-pocketed foreign investors, and has received a boost over the last 12 months from the country's changing politics, with Petro ascending to the presidency and progressive parties now a majority in Colombian congress.
"We saw the legalization of adult-use recreational two, three, or four years down the line... but now we're hoping for this year," said Luis Merchan, a Colombian businessman who is the CEO of Flora Growth, a Toronto-based company that is investing in Colombian marijuana from medical cannabis to textile hemp.
The campaigners who have demanded this shift for years agree.
"We think now the time is ripe to do it," says Luis Felipe Ruiz, an investigator at Colombia's NGO Dejusticia, which supports decriminalizing drugs and has documented the war on drugs for years. Drug trafficking is the top cause of detention in Colombia and, according to the Colombian Justice Ministry, 13% of the country's detainees are serving a sentence related to the drug trade. Ruiz argues that one of the benefits of legalizing marijuana would also be decreasing the prison population in the country.