Colombian President Gustavo Petro said during a six-hour live-streamed cabinet meeting that legalised cocaine could be "sold like wine".
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has said that "cocaine is no worse than whiskey" and that it's only illegal because it comes from Latin America.
The leftist leader - who has been trying to curb the South American country's growing cocaine production since coming to power in August 2022 - made the comments this week during a six-hour ministerial meeting that was broadcast live for the first time ever.
"Cocaine is illegal because it is produced in Latin America, not because it is worse than whiskey," said Petro, a former member of the M-19 guerrilla movement.
"If anyone wants peace, this business must (with drugs) to break," He added. "It could easily be dismantled if the world legalized cocaine. It would sell like wine."
Colombia is by far the world's largest producer of cocaine, and the cultivation of coca leaves - the drug's main ingredient - reached record levels in the country in 2023, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said. According to UNODC reports approximately 253,000 hectares of agricultural land will be planted with coca in Colombia in 2023, which is 10 % more than the previous year. "kills Americans and is not made in Colombia", referring to a drug that is part of the opioid crisis in the US and is estimated to cause around 70 000 overdose deaths a year in the country.
"Fentanyl was created as a pharmacy by North American multinationals" and those who used it 'became addicted', he added.
Peter's comments could stir the waters in Washington, as US President Donald Trump has made tackling drug trafficking a priority and threatened tariffs against Mexico and Canada over, among other things, the illegal flow of fentanyl into the US.
Just last month, Bogota and Washington were locked in a bitter dispute over immigration that nearly sparked a trade war between the longtime allies. Trump threatened Colombia with tariffs and sanctions after the South American country refused to accept military flights carrying deported migrants from the US. Bogota eventually backed down.
euronews/gnews - RoZ
ILLUSTRATION PHOTO - Colin Davis on Unsplash
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