Cocaine is “no worse than whisky” and “is illegal because it is made in Latin America”, announced left-wing Colombian President Gustavo Petro in a live ministerial broadcast earlier this week (February 4). 

Colombia is the world’s largest producer and exporter of cocaine, primarily to the US and Europe, and the drug’s global criminalisation has led to a decades-long battle between authorities and the illegal gangs that control its trade. “If you want peace, you have to dismantle the business business [of drug trafficking],” said Petro. “It could easily be dismantled if they legalise cocaine in the world. It would be sold like wine.”

It’s an idea that’s not to be sniffed at, given that Colombia has long been embroiled in the US-led global war on drugs, which President Petro has previously called “a failure”. By contrast, President Petro pointed out earlier this week that fentanyl “is killing Americans and is not produced in Colombia”, suggesting a disparity between the harms of substances and their legal status.

He went on to say that fentanyl was “created as a pharmacy drug by North American multinationals”, making consumers addicted. “Scientists have analysed this,” he said. “Cocaine is no worse than whisky.”

Since coming to power in 2022, Petro, who himself was a former member of armed guerilla group M19, has hoped to make peace with the armed groups that have formed around the country’s sizable drug trafficking industry, attempting to end six decades of conflict. 

Colombia’s production of cocaine reached a record high of 2,600 tons in 2023 and, in recent weeks, rebel groups involved in the drug trade have displaced an estimated 50,000 people in Colombia’s north-eastern Catatumbo region. Meanwhile, US President Trump has implemented a hardline stance on the drug trade, recently threatening Mexico over the trafficking of opioids over the US border.