“What is more harmful to humanity,” asked Colombian president Gustavo Petro to world leaders at the 2022 UN General Assembly, “cocaine, carbon dioxide, or coal?” For Petro, the answer was simple: the War on Drugs is destructive, ineffective, and a waste of resources which should be directed at the much more pressing concern of climate catastrophe. For these reasons, there is an urgent need for change.

Predictably, this was met with a mixed reception. His supporters as well as others from the international community admired his reappraisal of the War on Drugs, whilst his opponents branded him as a populist and criticised his lack of alternative solutions.

Nevertheless, the message is certainly valid. The War on Drugs has been an abject failure from its conception and has come nowhere near halting the global cocaine trade. In fact, despite pouring over a trillion dollars into the War on Drugs, the cocaine economy is larger than ever. It is time to reassess this flawed drug policy and, as a global community, think of new solutions.

How the War on Drugs has failed

The War on Drugs began in 1972 under Richard Nixon; a law-and-order president who labelled drugs as America’s “public enemy number one.” Despite its domestic inspiration, its focus was redirected towards tackling the ‘source-countries’ through George H. W. Bush’s ‘Andean Initiative’ in 1989. More specifically, it was turned upon the impoverished peasant communities which produce cocaine and grow coca-leaf (the raw material for cocaine) in the Andean foothills.

Instead of dealing with the issue of demand, the U.S. became fixated on the supply of cocaine. 50 years later, this strategy has proven an abject failure for three main reasons:

Firstly and most clearly, its punitive approach to cocaine production is responsible for half a century of bloodshed which has only served to prolong the social violence of Colombia’s guerrilla war.

Secondly, it has created a paradox wherein world leaders of the Global North proclaim the importance of protecting the Amazon yet oversee mass operations of fumigation, deforestation, and forced crop eradication in the effort of uprooting coca production. This invariably leads to the destruction of ecosystems.

Thirdly, the criminalisation of the cocaine economy has perpetuated levels of corruption in Latin America, stagnating economic development and in some cases hindering democratic stability.

On top of all this, the rate of drug consumption (the only metric to definitively measure the War’s effectiveness) has showed no signs of slowing. In 2020, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated that around 284 million people between 15-64 years of age consumed drugs globally. This was a 26% increase from 2010.   

Evidently, Washington’s scope over the past five decades has been entirely misdirected and overwhelmingly ineffective, which brings us to the current moment.

Ending the War on Drugs

A feeling of expectation grew throughout the 77th UN General Assembly in September 2022. The passing of Queen Elizabeth II and Joe Biden’s declaration that “the pandemic is over” provided a suggestion that a page was turning in history. It was in this light that Gustavo Petro, stood before rows of world leaders for the first time since becoming Colombian president in August, delivered an unequivocal message: “From my wounded Latin America, I demand you end the irrational War on Drugs.”

This is certainly a complex task. However, it appears increasingly evident that the only viable solution would be decriminalising the production of coca and loosening the punitive punishments on the consumption of cocaine.

To be effective, this must occur in the U.S. as well as in Colombia. These two types of decriminalisation look very different but put together will result in a far more effective and harmonistic global drug policy.  

Colombia – Una Hoja Sagrada

The Petro government plans to push through legislation which would decriminalise the production of coca and marijuana. This would be beneficial for the state as well as the local communities.

By being able to regulate the distribution of these crops, the state would be able to seize the markets from armed groups and cartels. This would disqualify their claims to legitimacy in rural areas and severely weaken their power. In the long-run, the breakdown of armed groups could facilitate a decrease in the rate of political violence and corruption in the country.

Of course, current political transgressions are a part of a broader historical cycle so this won’t be easy; for instance lawlessness persists in regions of Peru and Bolivia where coca-growing is legal. Nevertheless, it would be a massive step in the right direction.

Locally speaking, legalising the cultivation of coca-leaf is hugely important in providing indigenous rural communities with a legitimate opportunity for prosperity and, more importantly, sovereignty. A native crop to the Andes, coca has long been an incredibly popular method of economic subsistence. During times of hardship, many peasants emigrate to coca-growing areas from the highlands for a chance at this prosperity. People like María Céspedes, a 42-year old woman from the remote southwestern municipality of Tumaco, claim that “Everything I have I owe to coca.” In the vast swaths of land quilted with coca in rural Colombia, this is far from a rarity.

By Marley Markham