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Colombian lawmakers introduce new marijuana legalization bill one month after the previous version was stalled

Colombian legislators have reintroduced for the next legislative session a bill that would legalize marijuana in all of Colombia.

One month after the version of the previous reform failed in the Senate during the final stages of an eight-step process, Rep. Juan Carlos Losada announced that he and Sen. Maria Jose Pizarro are trying to implement the reform again.

It was approved by both chambers in last year’s constitutional amendment process, which takes two years. was passed by the Chamber of Deputies in May, and through a Senate Committee. It received a majority on the floor but fell short of the threshold of 54 votes it needed for passage.

Losada recently told CNN he blames President Gustavo Petro’s administration for failing to do more to advocate the bill. “We will come back to that.”

He said, “We are facing a critical month in which we must determine who we can rely on to help us reach our goal.”

In a tweet last week, he said that reformers “continue to fight for the change of failed prohibitionist policies against drugs to advance a policy guided in public health guidelines, prevention of consumption, and guarantee of consumer care.”

Losada and Pizarro did not mention any changes in the Bill from the previous version. Losado said, however, the bill was submitted with 70 cosponsors.

He said that Colombia was the epicenter for the failed prohibitionist war against drugs. “We are entitled to promote a different approach, where the state and its institutions regulate the market instead of illegality and the mafias.”

In an open hearing before the Senate panel last year Justice Minister Nestor suna said the same thing, saying that Colombia was the victim of a “failed war designed 50 years ago, and due to absurd prohibitionism, has brought us blood, armed conflicts, mafias, and crime.”

Last year, the Chamber of Representatives approved the first version of the Legalization Bill. At the time, the head of the Interior Ministry spoke out in support of the reform proposal. This vote was taken shortly after , a congressional committee , had advanced both this measure and another legalization bill .

Petro, who is a progressive and has advocated for a global end to drug criminalization ever since he was inaugurated as a member of the United Nations last year, discussed possible benefits from cannabis legalization.

The president gave a speech last year at a United Nations (UN) meeting, in which he urged member nations to change fundamentally their drug policies and to disband prohibition.

Petro also spoke about prospects for legalizing marijuana in Colombia, as a way to reduce the influence of the illegal market. He also said that the new policy should be followed up by releasing those who are currently behind bars for cannabis.

He talked about the potential economic benefits of a legal cannabis cultivation industry. Small towns like Andes and Miranda, for example, could benefit from this, even without licensing requirements.

The president has also indicated that he would be interested in exploring exporting cannabis into other countries where it is legal.

Petro met with Mexico’s president last year. The pair announced they would be gathering other Latin American leaders to attend an international conference on “redesigning, rethinking and reevaluating drug policy” in light of the “failure of prohibition”. Mexican legislators are also working towards national legalization.

According to the United Nations Office of Drug Control Policy, Colombia is still a major exporter of cocaine despite “drug-supply reduction activities in Colombia such as eradication of the coca bush and destruction of labs.”

Colombian lawmakers introduced a bill in 2020 that would regulate coca, the plant used to make cocaine. This was an acknowledgement of the failures of the decades-long government campaign against the drug. The legislation passed a committee but was eventually shelved in the conservative-dominated legislature.

Advocates were optimistic that such an idea could be implemented under the Petro administration. The president hasn’t taken a stance on the bill itself but he did campaign on marijuana legalization and promote cannabis as a cocaine alternative.

Juan Manuel Santos, the former Colombian president, has also been critical and supported reform. In an op/ed written before he left his office, he criticised the United Nations and U.S. president Richard Nixon for setting a standard in drug war that has been ineffective and counterproductive.

He said: “It’s time to talk about responsible government regulations, find ways to cut the air supply of the drug mafias, and address the problem of drug use by increasing resources for prevention, treatment, and harm reduction in terms public health and social fabric.”

Santos, a reform-minded member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP), said that “this reflection must have a global scope to be effective.” “It also must be broad and include participation from not only governments, but also academia and civil society.” It must go beyond the law enforcement and judicial authority and include experts in public health and economists, among others.

A U.S. Congress delegation recently returned from a trip to Colombia, and Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-OR, who was part the group, told Marijuana Moment, that one of the themes of his discussions with Colombian officials was that “the world has lost the war on drugs.”


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Image element provided by Bryan Pocius.

The article Colombian lawmakers introduce new marijuana legalization bill one month after prior version was stalled first appeared on Marijuana Moment.

Kyle Jaeger
Author: Kyle Jaeger

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