Drugs: Columbia's Petro - War On Drugs Is Fail, Vows To Decrim and Push UN

[grarpamp]

Decriminalization is fine, yet still "legal" "regulation" "taxation"
"permitting" of non-aggressing people by murderous govts is not.


"The War On Drugs Has Failed": Colombia Looks To Decriminalize Cocaine

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/20/colombia-cocaine-decriminalize-petro/

Colombia, the world's largest producer of cocaine, and the origin of
more than 90% seized in the United States - is considering
decriminalizing the drug in an experiment to end Washington DC's
never-ending "war on drugs," according to the Washington Post.
Colombian Army examining a cocaine pack confiscated by troops.
Thomson Reuters

After just two weeks in office, the country's first leftist government
has proposed an end to "prohibition" - in what would become the first
government-regulated market for cocaine. Officials would work with
other leftist governments in the region via legislation and alliances
in order to "turn their country into a laboratory for drug
decriminalization."

"It is time for a new international convention that accepts that the
war on drugs has failed," said President Gustavo Petro in his
inaugural address this month.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro gestures during his swearing-in
ceremony at Plaza Bolivar in Bogotá on Aug. 7. (Luisa
Gonzalez/Reuters)

The move would likely upend the country's long-standing (and
profitable) counternarcotics relationship with the US - whose
officials, both past and present, are sounding the alarm.

    A former DEA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity
because his current employer had not authorized him to speak on the
matter, said he feared the move would limit the agency’s ability to
collaborate with the Colombians on drug trafficking investigations.

    “It would incrementally kill the cooperation,” he said. “It would
be devastating, not just regionally, but globally. Everyone would be
fighting from the outside in.” -WaPo

Jonathan Finer, Biden's White House deputy national security adviser,
who met with Petro in the US before his inauguration, said that "the
United States and the Biden administration is not a supporter of
decriminalization."

The United States has spent billions of dollars to fund a strategy to
seek and destroy cocaine plants in the fields of rural Colombia, with
US intelligence and other agencies having provided support to
Colombia's decades-long military efforts to rid the country of coca,
the plant from which cocaine is derived.

Despite more than half-a-century at war on the drug, cocaine
production has hit record levels according to recent figures.

Petro's drug czar, Felipe Tascón, says this is a rare opportunity to
unite the governments of cocaine-producing countries such as Peru and
Bolivia, which are similarly led by leftists.

    In his first interview since being named to the job, the economist
said he wants to meet with his counterparts in those countries to
discuss decriminalization at the regional level. Eventually, he hopes
a unified regional bloc can renegotiate international drug conventions
at the United Nations.

    Domestically, Petro’s administration is planning to back
legislation to decriminalize cocaine and marijuana. It plans to put an
end to aerial spraying and the manual eradication of coca, which
critics say unfairly targets poor rural farmers. By regulating the
sale of cocaine, Tascón argued, the government would wrest the market
from armed groups and cartels. -WaPo

"Drug traffickers know that their business depends on it being
prohibited," said Tascón, adding "If you regulate it like a public
market … the high profits disappear and the drug trafficking
disappears."