A congressional delegation returned from a visit to Colombia this week, and a congressman who was part of the trip tells Marijuana Moment that one theme of his discussions with officials in the country was that the world has \u201clost the war on drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who chairs the House Ways & Means Subcommittee on Trade, said that drug policy was a \u201csignificant part\u201d of his conversations during the trip to Colombia\u2014 where cannabis legalization legislation is actively advancing\u2014and there was a general \u201crecognition\u201d that the punitive approach to drugs that the U.S. exported globally has \u201cfailed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colombia\u2019s new administration under President Gustavo Petro has been driving an international conversation about the need for international collaboration to chart a different course when it comes to drugs, and Blumenauer, who also co-chairs the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, took the opportunity to share a U.S. perspective on the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Petro administration is introducing the concept of a whole comprehensive approach to addressing the drug war and its consequences,\u201d the congressman told Marijuana Moment on Tuesday. Decades of criminalization has only made it so illicit drugs are \u201cmore readily available\u201d and cheaper.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s had devastating consequences for poor farmers\u2014and it has accomplished nothing,\u201d the congressman said, adding that he\u2019s encouraged by Colombia\u2019s efforts to \u201ctry and do a u-turn on drug policy, moving away from a heavy-handed law enforcement approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of that effort means working to \u201cshift the activities of poor farmers into other other crops and activities\u201d and doing so \u201cin a way that recognizes the reality on the ground and the fact that American policies have been visited upon poor Colombians to no good effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blumenauer said that there was also discussion about marijuana legalization, and he shared with officials the experience of Oregon over the past several decades after becoming the first state to decriminalize cannabis in 1973 and then legalizing adult-use marijuana in 2014.<\/p>\n
There was also interest in President Joe Biden\u2019s recent move to issue a mass pardons<\/a> for people who\u2019ve committed federal cannabis possession offenses. The congressman said he told Colombian officials that the action represented a symbolic \u201csea change,\u201d even if the \u201cdirect impact\u201d was limited to just a few thousand Americans<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that this is the first proposal by this administration, or any administration, dealing with pardons on this scale is very significant,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Biden administration also called for a reappraisal of [marijuana scheduling] and I think if that is done anywhere near an objective fashion, it\u2019s going to have cascading effects.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think what the administration is doing is starting a process that\u2019s going to accelerate the work we\u2019ve been doing for years to get this out of the criminal justice system\u2014to be able to legalize, tax, regulate and be able to take advantage [of reform], both of the therapeutic and the economic benefits of cannabis,\u201d Blumenauer said. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s certainly where Colombia is going.\u201d<\/p>\n In a press release on the congressional delegation\u2019s trip, Blumenauer said both countries \u201cshare a commitment to democratic values, which we emphasized in our trade policy discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow is the time to focus on policies that will right the wrongs of the past,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cFrom the complicated war on drugs to combatting climate change and protecting the Amazon, to full economic and social inclusion of women, Afro-Colombian, and Indigenous communities, there\u2019s much we can do together.\u201d<\/p>\n A bill to legalize marijuana in Colombia earned initial approval by the country\u2019s Chamber of Representatives<\/a> this month, though it must still advance through additional debates before potentially being enacted into law.<\/p>\n The floor vote came shortly after a congressional committee passed the measure, as well as a separate legalization bill<\/a>\u00a0that includes provisions to distribute tax revenue from cannabis sales to individual government municipalities.<\/p>\n Colombia\u2019s president, who was inaugurated in August, has discussed the possible benefits of cannabis legalization, though he hasn\u2019t explicitly endorsed the reform proposals that are advancing yet.<\/p>\n That said, Cabinet officials, including the heads of the Justice Ministry and Interior Ministry, did speak in favor of the legalization proposal during the full chamber hearing this month.<\/p>\n For his part, Petro told members of the United Nations (UN) late last month that \u201cdemocracy will die\u201d if global powers don\u2019t unite to end the drug war<\/a> and pursue a different approach, with millions of lives on the line under the current regime.<\/p>\n The president said in a separate interview last month that the US and other countries will enable a \u201cgenocide\u201d of avoidable overdose deaths if leaders maintain the status quo of criminalization.<\/p>\n He also recently talked about the prospects of legalizing marijuana in Colombia<\/a> as one means of reducing the influence of the illicit market.\u00a0And 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 additionally signaled that he\u2019d be interested in exploring the idea of \u200b\u200bexporting cannabis to other countries where the plant is legal.<\/p>\n U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), who chairs the House Rules Committee,\u00a0cheered 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 Biden, meanwhile, recently released a memorandum to the defense secretary 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 That said, Secretary of State Antony Blinken\u00a0said in a joint appearance with Petro earlier this month that the U.S. generally backs his \u201cholistic approach\u201d to drugs. The Colombian president, for his part, said that countries need to \u201cview the war on drugs differently.\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,\u00a0\u00a0despite\u00a0\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.\u00a0That legislation cleared a committee, but it was ultimately shelved by the overall conservative legislature.<\/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 UN and U.S. President Richard Nixon for their role in setting a drug war standard that has proven 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.\u00a0\u201cIt must also be broad, including participation not only of governments but also of academia and civil society.\u00a0It must reach beyond law enforcement and judicial authorities and involve experts in public health, economists and educators, among other disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n German Government\u2019s Marijuana Legalization Plan Leaked, Drawing Criticism From Both Sides Of The Debate<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Image element courtesy of Bryan Pocius<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post U.S. Congressional Delegation To Colombia Talks Marijuana Legalization And \u2018Failed American Policies\u2019 On Drugs<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A congressional delegation returned from a visit to Colombia this week, and a congressman who was part of the trip tells Marijuana Moment that one theme of his discussions with officials in the country was that the world has \u201clost the war on drugs.\u201d Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who chairsContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57604"}],"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=57604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57605,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57604\/revisions\/57605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: U.S. Congressional Delegation To Colombia Talks Marijuana Legalization And \u2018Failed American Policies\u2019 On Drugs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"