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Colombia\u2019s recently inaugurated president told members of the United Nations (UN) on Tuesday that \u201cdemocracy will die\u201d if global powers don\u2019t unite to end the drug war and pursue a different approach, with millions of lives on the line under the current regime.<\/p>\n
President Gustavo Petro also separately said in a new interview this week that the U.S. and other countries will enable a \u201cgenocide\u201d of avoidable overdose deaths if leaders maintain the status quo of criminalization.<\/p>\n
In a speech before the UN\u2019s General Assembly on Tuesday, Petro said definitively that the \u201cwar on drugs has failed,\u201d according to a translation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe war on drugs has lasted 40 years. If we do not correct the course, and this continues another 40 years, the United States will see 2.8 million die of overdoses [from fentanyl], which is not produced in our Latin America,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cYou will see millions of African Americans be imprisoned in their private prisons. The [Black] prisoner will become a business of prison companies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLes propongo como Presidente de uno de los paises m\u00e1s hermosos de la tierra y de los m\u00e1s ensangrentados y violentados, acabar la guerra contra las drogas, y as\u00ed, permitir que nuestro pueblo pueda vivir en paz\u201d: Presidente @petrogustavo<\/a> en la @UN<\/a>. #ColombiaEnLaONU<\/a> \u2014 Presidencia Colombia The president added that another one million Latin Americans will die as a consequences of this policy and \u201cthey will fill our lives with blood.\u201d<\/p>\n They will \u201csee the dream of democracy die, both in my America as in Anglo-Saxon America,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, during his first U.S. broadcast interview, Petro put the situation in similarly stark terms, saying that while he\u2019s spoken with officials in the Biden administration who\u2019ve recognized the failures of drug criminalization, there must be a united effort to change course, or else countries will pay the price.<\/p>\n \u201cThe American government is like a slow animal. Great transformations don\u2019t happen overnight,\u201d Petro told GZERO, according to a translation. \u201cThey happen very slowly. I have observed a much more open mindset in Biden government officials today around this topic.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that the Biden administration understands that criminalization has led to the incarceration of millions of people, disproportionately Black Americans.<\/p>\n Prohibition \u201cwill leave us Latin Americans with one million more dead and the mafia organizations will be ten times more powerful than they already are,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n Petro, a liberal who campaigned on taking a radically different approach to drug issues, said that famed drug trafficker Pablo Escobar would \u201cshudder\u201d at the strength of today\u2019s \u201cmultinational cocaine organizations\u201d that are \u201cstrong simply because drugs are banned.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe war on drugs has created its own enemy, which has grown in power and strength,\u201d the president said<\/a>. \u201cPeace in Colombia depends on building a new drug policy on a new vision. If not, they condemn us to genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n He also stressed that Latin American countries must \u201ccome together in this,\u201d saying that it\u2019s \u201cshameful that we have been the producers of the coca leaf or cocaine\u201d and \u201cbelieved that we must silence ourselves and accept the policies of world power in this regard, even though they are totally wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis must end. We do not have to be a space for genocide for the deaths of millions of people because of a policy that is completely wrong,\u201d he said. \u201cA dialogue with the world is required\u2014a dialogue with the United States with an independent voice.\u201d<\/p>\n Petro also recently talked about the prospects of legalizing marijuana in Colombia<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n He spoke about the economic potential of a legal cannabis industry, one where small towns in places like the Andes, Corinto and Miranda could stand to benefit from legal marijuana cultivation, possibly without any licensing requirements.<\/p>\n The president also signaled that he\u2019d be interested in exploring the idea of exporting cannabis to other countries where the plant is legal.<\/p>\n A legalization bill championed by Colombian Sen. Gustavo Bol\u00edvar was introduced in July, and the senator said that the reform is within reach now that the country\u2019s Congress has a liberal majority of lawmakers who fit within a political coalition known as the Historic Pact.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Petro also recently discussed his views on ending the broader war on drug<\/a> in his inaugural address last month, emphasizing the need for the international community to become unified around the idea that criminalization as a policy has failed.<\/p>\n U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), who chairs the powerful House Rules Committee, cheered the official swearing in of Petro<\/a>, saying that he looks forward to \u201cworking together to\u2026rethink drug policy, and much more.\u201d<\/p>\n President Joe Biden, on the other hand, seems intent on perpetuating the drug war in Colombia, with U.S. military support. He released a\u00a0memorandum<\/a> to the defense secretary last month that authorizes the \u201cinterdiction of aircraft reasonably suspected to be primarily engaged in illicit drug trafficking in that country\u2019s airspace.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that it\u2019s \u201cnecessary because of the extraordinary threat posed by illicit drug trafficking to the national security of that country\u201d and because \u201cColombia has appropriate procedures in place to protect against innocent loss of life in the air and on the ground in connection with such interdiction, which includes effective means to identify and warn an aircraft before the use of force is directed against the aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n As a former member of Colombia\u2019s M-19 guerrilla group, Petro has seen the violent conflict between guerrilla fighters, narcoparamilitary groups and drug cartels that has been exacerbated by the government\u2019s aggressive approach to drug enforcement.<\/p>\n According to the United Nations Office of Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Colombia remains a chief exporter of cocaine,\u00a0despite<\/a>\u00a0\u201cdrug supply reduction activities in Colombia, such as eradication of coca bush and destruction of laboratories.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2020, Colombian legislators introduced a bill that would have regulated coca, the plant that is processed to produce cocaine, in an acknowledgment that the government\u2019s decades-long fight against the drug and its procedures have consistently failed. That legislation cleared a committee, but it was ultimately shelved by the overall conservative legislature.<\/p>\n Advocates are optimistic that such a proposal could advance under a Petro administration. The president hasn\u2019t taken a clear stance on the legislation itself, but he campaigned on legalizing marijuana and promoted the idea of cannabis as an alternative to cocaine.<\/p>\n Former Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos has also been critical of the drug war and embraced reform. In an editorial published before he left office, he criticized the United Nations and U.S. President Richard Nixon for their role in setting a drug war standard that has proved ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is time we talk about responsible government regulation, look for ways to cut off the drug mafias\u2019 air supply, and tackle the problems of drug use with greater resources for prevention, care and harm reduction with regard to public health and the social fabric,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis reflection must be global in scope in order to be effective,\u201d Santos, who is a member of the pro-reform Global Commission on Drug Policy, said. \u201cIt must also be broad, including participation not only of governments but also of academia and civil society. It must reach beyond law enforcement and judicial authorities and involve experts in public health, economists and educators, among other disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n German Lawmakers Tour California Marijuana Businesses To Inform National Legalization Plans<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Image element courtesy of Bryan Pocius<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Colombia\u2019s President Tells UN That \u2018Democracy Will Die\u2019 If World Leaders Don\u2019t End Drug War And Pursue Different Strategy<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Colombia\u2019s recently inaugurated president told members of the United Nations (UN) on Tuesday that \u201cdemocracy will die\u201d if global powers don\u2019t unite to end the drug war and pursue a different approach, with millions of lives on the line under the current regime. President Gustavo Petro also separately said inContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":57210,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57211,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57209\/revisions\/57211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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#UNGA<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/U6D1iraodU<\/a><\/p>\n![\"🇨🇴\"](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/1f1e8-1f1f4-1.png\")
(@infopresidencia) September 20, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
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\nRead More: Colombia\u2019s President Tells UN That \u2018Democracy Will Die\u2019 If World Leaders Don\u2019t End Drug War And Pursue Different Strategy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"