And now some members of the Colombian government are proposing a different approach to the issue. They argue that the drug should be legalized and the government should take control of its trade on its own account.
In a new bill introduced earlier in 2020, two senators called on the government to take full control of the entire cocaine industry to boost the public economy and deal a blow to the cartels that have been trading it for decades. .
As Senator Iván Marulanda told Vice, the government would buy the coca plant at a purchase price from the 200 families believed to be involved in the trade. The senators claim that it will be cheaper for the growers to buy the plant than to destroy their own crops. Each year, the cost of destroying the coca crop costs the government $ 1 billion, while at the same time it would cost just $ 680 million to buy it.
Columbia is considering a bill that makes the government buy up and sell the country's cocaine production.
HOLY. SHIT. So instead of trying to stamp out drugs, Columbia tries to take control of the trade and regulate the problem? https://t.co/8SBmE45dmX
- Jason Ng (@ByJasonNg) December 2, 2020
The government will provide cocaine to users and researchers, who will study its use as a painkiller. It will not be sold for entertainment purposes. Nevertheless, cocaine use has been legal in Colombia since 1994, with a court ruling that possession of up to 1 gram of cocaine for personal use is a human right.
Marulanda is not sure how much of an impact this bill will have, but he hopes it will become a major electoral issue in 2022. "The first hurdle is to open up the debate to public opinion. This is a big taboo. Colombians are born and raised to assume that the drug trade is a war. There is no information on cocaine and cocaine. "So with this bill we hope to open this debate," Marulanda said.
In recent years the government has intensified policing around the industry, but cocaine production continues to increase year by year.
In 2019 there was a 2% increase in plant production, while the production of pure cocaine increased by 8%. It seems that whatever the government does to eradicate cocaine, it returns, so there are politicians who argue that more drastic alternative measures should be taken. In an interview with Vice, Marulanda said that cutting off trade intermediaries would reduce violence in the country's drug war and also make the drug safer for people who use it.