Colombian President Gustavo Petro said during a government meeting that cocaine is “not worse than whiskey” and that it’s only illegal because it comes from Latin America.
Colombia, the world’s largest producer and exporter of cocaine, has spent decades fighting drug trafficking, but the country’s left-wing president claimed the drug was being scapegoated by American politicians, who have waged the war on drugs for decades.
“Cocaine is illegal because it is made in Latin America, not because it is worse than whiskey,” Petro said during a six-hour-long government meeting.
“Scientists have analyzed this: cocaine is not worse than whiskey,” he added, suggesting that the global cocaine industry could be “easily dismantled” if the drug was legalized worldwide.
“If somebody wants peace, the business [of drug trafficking] has to be dismantled,” Petro said. “It could be easily dismantled if they legalized cocaine in the world. It would be sold like wine.”
By contrast, Petro pointed out that fentanyl, a contributor to the opioid crisis in the United States, “is killing Americans, but it’s not made in Colombia.”
“Fentanyl was created as a pharmacy drug by North American multinationals” and those who used it “became addicted,” he added.
Petro has already been at odds with new U.S. President Donald Trump, after his country initially barred American military planes from landing with returning migrants aboard.
Trump’s administration responded by threatening to impose punitive tariffs on Colombian exports to the U.S., pushing Bogotá to agree to accept the migrants “without restriction or delay,” according to the White House.
Cocaine production in Colombia reached a record high in 2023, jumping by 53 percent to more than 2,600 tons, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
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