Colombian President calls on legislators to legalize pot in Colombia. He argues that prohibition will only lead to cartel violence in the illegal marijuana market. The president of Colombia is also pushing for other nations to be able to use coca leaves “for other purposes 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 president, in a statement translated by Reuters, said: “The empowerment mafia organisations shows that prohibition has failed and there are no alternative measures other than simple prohibition.”
He added, “My government is committed to working with other governments on the issue of confiscating coca.” It has concentrated and will continue to focus on the large-scale shipments, and high-ranking drug and money launderers around the world.
Petro asked the Colombian Congress “to legalize marijuana and to remove violence from it.”
The prohibition of cannabis in Colombia will only bring violence, he claimed.
La caída de Namoussir Mounir, enlace entre carteles colombianos y mexicanos con carteles de los balcanes, quien residía en Cartagena, muestra el grado de multinacionalización de las mafias de la cocaína.
Hoy existen carteles mucho más poderosos que en le época de Pablo Escobar.… pic.twitter.com/VwZUxdsZBR
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) March 2, 2025
He also called for “governments around the world” to lift the United Nations ban on using coca leaf in other ways than just cocaine. “If coca leaves can be used as fertilizer, food, and many other things, then the substitution policy is improved.”
Petro, the president, has advocated for a regulatory approach to drug policies, which is more economically viable and effective than prohibition.
He also claimed that cocaine was “no worse than whiskey” and argued that cartels would be “easily demolished” if it were legalized.
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. Then he said the people currently behind bars for marijuana should be freed.
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