California Could Change the Drug Policies in Colombia

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said that if Proposition 19 is approved next Tuesday in California, legalizing marijuana in that state, then that would obligate his country to reconsider its own drug policy.

Santos continued to say that he would not know how to explain to a Colombian farmer that “we are going to put him in prison, while the same product [marijuana] is legal in the U.S. That is going to produce a global discussion about the approach we have had on the fight against drug trafficking.” A few months ago Santos supported the appeal of Mexican President Felipe Calderón, with whom there may be a debate about the legalization of drugs. However, Santos believes that the legalization would increase the consumption of drugs, a supposition that has not been supported by the evidence of countries with liberal drug policies like Portugal.

Yesterday, at his inauguration, while the ending declarations of the XII Tuxtla Summit in Cartagena were being made, Santos once again affirmed: “If we don’t act in a consistent manner in this affair, if all we are doing is sending our fellow citizens to prison while in other latitudes the market is legalized, then we should ask ourselves: Is it not time to revise the global strategy towards drugs?”

Santos’ declarations have been supported by his Minister of Foreign Affairs, who even said in an interview from “El Tiempo” that the country’s new position in the United Nations Security Council could be a “good stage” in order to begin a “global debate” concerning the matter in which it is waging the war on drugs. These welcome, however ironic, remarks from the president of the closest allied country to Washington in Latin America, may be the principal voice in questioning the knowledge on the war on drugs. This, however, should not surprise us.

In 1998 Juan Manuel Santos signed a public charter (in English) sent to the then United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan. It denounced the war against drugs as an “unsuccessful and useless” experiment. The charter asked that the drug policies be based on “common sense, science, public health and human rights.”

Although the impact of Proposition 19 in California and the U.S. might be limited (in English), Juan Manuel Santos’ declarations show that his implications in Latin America could be considerable.