Article – Jacobin: Toward an Anti-Capitalist Drug Policy | Cannabis Law Report

Estafanía CiroTwo years ago, there was more hope for change. Petro came to power in 2022 with a promise of change, a very encouraging scenario. Now I think the window of opportunity for real drug policy reform has closed.

I attended the Latin American and Caribbean Drug Policy Conference in September 2023, where all the foreign ministers of Latin America spoke. Only two of them were vehement in their stance of regulating all drugs: the Chilean and Uruguayan foreign ministers.

In Colombia, we have several documents. The 2016 Peace Agreement [with the FARC guerrillas] mentions crop substitution and transformative drug-consumption policies. That wasn’t fulfilled. In 2020, the US Congress introduced the “holistic policy” [a guideline for drug policy in Latin America]. Petro relaunched it in 2022, claiming it as his own: alternative development [of crops to replace coca] and substitution [with legal crops].

It’s the same paradigm. We’re at record levels of cocaine production, record hectares [of coca crops], and record seizures. In other words, the result remains the same. We’re in the same place we were with former president Juan Manuel Santos (2010–18).

If Petro truly wants a new drug policy, he must break with the United States. And what better time than now, with Trump, who says he won’t send more USAID funding?