Foreign Minister of Colombia Laura Sarabia on Monday urged the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) to remove coca leaves — cocaine’s main ingredient — from its list of harmful substances.
Sarabia, representing Colombia at CND’s 68th session in Vienna, Austria, claimed during her speech that if coca leaves are removed from the list they would serve an industrial use in the manufacturing of fertilizers and beverages. Sarabia further claimed that a removal of coca leaves would not imply a change in Colombia’s drug-fighting policies and instead called for the international community to “rethink” global drug policy.
“The evidence is overwhelming: drug trafficking has slowed the development of our country, has victimized millions of peasants, has financed terrorist groups and has devastated essential ecosystems such as the Amazon,” Sarabia said.
“Science will prove that the coca leaf itself is not harmful to health. We will only be able to take it away from the drug traffickers if we take advantage of its potential for industrial uses, such as fertilizers and beverages,” she continued.
Colombia is the world’s top producer of cocaine and has spent decades attempting to eradicate local cocaine production by criminal groups and Marxist terrorist organizations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).
To produce cocaine, coca leaves must first be harvested and then undergo a chemical process that turns them into a paste. Drug traffickers proceed to buy the coca paste and then refine it into cocaine.
Coca leaves are one of several harmful substances listed in the United Nations 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, of which Colombia is a signatory. Article 26 of the 1961 convention calls for the uprooting of all coca bushes that grow wild and the destruction of said bushes if they are illegally cultivated.
Unlike his predecessors, President Gustavo Petro, a former member of the Marxist M19 terrorist group and Colombia’s first leftist president ever, implemented lenient drug policies upon taking office in August 2022: Instead of cracking down on coca leaf production in Colombian territory, Petro has focused on targeting drug trafficking networks and drug lords that benefit from overseas sales.
Petro’s policies have resulted in a dramatic surge in cocaine production, which reached its highest recorded level in more than two decades in 2023 according to UN estimates. Reports published in July indicated that the increase in cocaine production in Colombia during Petro’s administration has resulted in large amounts of unsold coca paste “piling up” in the country due to the overwhelmingly higher supply of the ingredient.
Colombian government officials claimed last year that drug seizures have “increased significantly” during Petro’s first two years in office. The New York Times refuted the claims, asserting that the increase in drug seizures was because “so much more cocaine is being produced” in the country.
Petro has repeatedly defended the use of cocaine, a drug that, according to him, is “less harmful” than sugar. In February, during a controversial six-hour government meeting broadcast live on national television, Petro claimed that cocaine is “not worse than whiskey.” Petro asserted during the broadcast that cocaine is only illegal because “it’s produced in Latin America” and suggested that, if legalized, it could be “sold like wine.”
Sarabia claimed during her speech at the CND gathering that from August 7, 2022 — the day Petro took office — to January 31, 2025, Colombia seized “more than 1.9 million kilograms of cocaine hydrochloride, more than 215,000 kilograms of coca base and destroyed 454 clandestine laboratories.” The foreign minister also called for a “rethinking” of global drug policies and asserted that “reforming the global drug regime does not mean normalizing drug trafficking, but rather providing us with more effective tools to combat it.”
“We cannot continue repeating the mistakes of the past. For Colombia, refocusing this policy is a matter of life and peace,” Sarabia said.
Shortly after her participation at CND’s 68th session, Sarabia spoke to Colombia’s Blu Radio and asserted that her request to remove coca leaves from the U.N.’s list of harmful substances does not mean a legalization of cocaine.
“This does not mean the legalization of coca. It does not mean that we are going to bow down to drug trafficking. The coca leaf has scientific uses. We are not legalizing cocaine,” Sarabia said.
Miguel Tunjano, a retired colonel of Colombia’s Anti-Narcotics Police, criticized Sarabia’s request in remarks given to the local magazine Semana on Monday evening. Tunjano, an expert in illicit crops, condemned the request as “oxygen” for Colombian criminal structures spread across the country and explained that it would effectively allow them to have “all the coca in Colombia at their disposal” to buy and refine into cocaine.
“That basically is giving those organizations an opportunity to increase their finances,” Tunjano said.
Former Colombian Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón Bueno criticized Sarabia’s request in a Monday social media post, describing the request issued by the foreign minister as a “great favor to organized crime, terrorism, drug trafficking, and those who destroy tropical forests and pollute rivers.”
“Above all, a great favor to political corruption with a view to 2026,” Pinzón Bueno said. “The consolidation of a narco-state does terrible damage to the Colombian people, and to the prestige and credibility of Colombia abroad.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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