Colombian President Calls On Lawmakers To Legalize Marijuana To Combat Cartel Violence In The Illicit Market

The president of Colombia is calling on lawmakers to legalize marijuana in the country, arguing that prohibition “only brings violence” from cartels in the illicit market. And he’s also pushing other nations to legalize coca leaves for “for purposes other than cocaine.”

On Sunday, President Gustavo Petro warned in a social media post of the “multinationalization of the cocaine mafias,” claiming that there are more cartels today than before high-profile trafficker Pablo Escobar was caught and imprisoned.

“The empowerment of mafia organizations shows the failure of prohibition and the absence of alternative measures to simple prohibition,” the president said, according to a translation.

“My government will maintain full cooperation with all governments in the matter of confiscating cocaine,” he added. “And it has focused and will focus its action on large shipments and on high-ranking cocaine and money laundering bosses worldwide.”

Petro then said he’s asking the Colombian Congress to “legalize marijuana and remove violence from this crop.”

“The prohibition of marijuana in Colombia only brings violence,” he said.

Additionally, he called on “governments of the world to end the ban on the use of coca leaves for purposes other than cocaine at the United Nations,” stating that, “if coca leaves are used in fertilizers, food and other uses, the policy of substitution of illicit crops improves.”

The president’s position on drug policy issues is well known, as Petro has long maintained that regulations represent a more effective, and potentially economically beneficial, alternative to prohibition.

Last month, he also said cocaine is “not worse than whiskey,” while arguing that cartels could be “easily dismantled” if the drug was legalized and “sold like wine.”

Petro has also previously called for cannabis reform in the country, and he said in late 2023 that lawmakers who voted to shelve a legalization bill that year only helped to perpetuate illegal drug trafficking and the violence associated with the unregulated trade.

Lawmakers nearly enacted an earlier version of the legalization measure earlier that year, but it also stalled out in the final stage in the Senate last session—making it so supporters had to restart the lengthy legislative process.

At a public hearing in the Senate panel in 2022, Justice Minister Néstor Osuna said that Colombia has been the victim of “a failed war that was designed 50 years ago and, due to absurd prohibitionism, has brought us a lot of blood, armed conflict, mafias and crime.”

After a visit to the U.S. in 2023, the Colombian president recalled smelling the odor of marijuana wafting through the streets of New York City, remarking on the “enormous hypocrisy” of legal cannabis sales now taking place in the nation that launched the global drug war decades ago.

Petro also took a lead role at the Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Drugs in 2023, noting Colombia and Mexico “are the biggest victims of this policy,” likening the drug war to “a genocide.”

In 2022, Petro delivered a speech at a meeting of the United Nations, urging member nations to fundamentally change their approaches to drug policy and disband with prohibition.

He’s also talked about the prospects of legalizing marijuana in Colombia as one means of reducing the influence of the illicit market. And he signaled that the policy change should be followed by releasing people who are currently in prison over cannabis.