As Colombia’s not too long ago inaugurated president steps up his push for international drug coverage reform, lawmakers authorized a invoice to legalize and regulate marijuana nationwide on Tuesday, advancing it by means of a committee with almost unanimous assist.
The laws from Liberal Rep. Carlos Ardila and different lawmakers cleared the Chamber of Representatives First Committee in a 31-2 vote.
The proposal would create laws and set up a tax construction for authorized hashish gross sales. Income can be distributed amongst native municipalities to assist public well being, training and agricultural initiatives.
Con 31 votos a favor y 2 en contra, la #ComisiónPrimera de @CamaraColombia aprobó, en primer debate, nuestro proyecto de acto legislativo para common el hashish y garantizar ingresos tributarios para municipios, distritos y departamentos. #OportunidadParaLasRegiones #ReguleseYa pic.twitter.com/eCGalPweAu
— CARLOS ARDILA 🚩 (@CARLOSARDILA10) October 4, 2022
Ardila stated that that is the “first step that should be taken as a result of the political prohibition is consigned” domestically, in accordance with a translation of a report from RCN Radio.
An outline of the aim of the proposal states that it will “regulate the usage of hashish for folks of authorized age, thus guaranteeing the basic proper to the free growth of the persona.”
It will additionally promote “a unique strategy from the one used to date within the battle towards the dangerous results on well being and society that this psychoactive substance might have, altering a purely felony strategy for one among hurt discount and public well being.”
“Likewise, with this legislative act, methods that profit the countryside shall be promoted and others shall be applied to fight the unlawful visitors of this substance, betting on public well being and social progress,” the translated description says.
Seguimos avanzando en Comisión Primera de la @CamaraColombia. Aprobado en primer debate el proyecto de @CARLOSARDILA10 que busca common el hashish de uso adulto y asigna sus tributos a los municipios y departamentos para destinación a salud, educación y agricultura pic.twitter.com/2dSr5GSYoL
— Cathy Juvinao 🏛🇨🇴 (@CathyJuvinao) October 4, 2022
The bill is one among not less than two marijuana legalization measures to advance within the legislature in current weeks, with one other proposal from Liberal Rep. Juan Carlos Losada having already handed within the First Committee final month.
That lawmaker not too long ago despatched a letter to in search of assist for his invoice from President Gustavo Petro, a progressive who has strongly criticized the failures of the drug conflict and known as on international leaders to basically rethink drug coverage.
However as of but, the president hasn’t endorsed any of the precise hashish reform payments regardless that he has vocally criticized the general prohibitionist strategy of the conflict on medicine.
#ReguleseYa | Con este proyecto, los territorios podrán decretar y percibir impuestos por actividades relacionadas con el uso del hashish, para invertir en salud, educación y agricultura. Damos mayor autonomía fiscal a las regiones y le apostamos a la descentralización 💪 pic.twitter.com/mF3efhFePQ
— CARLOS ARDILA 🚩 (@CARLOSARDILA10) October 4, 2022
Petro advised members of the United Nations (UN) final month that “democracy will die” if international powers don’t unite to finish prohibition and undertake a unique strategy, with thousands and thousands of lives on the road beneath the present regime.
The president stated in a separate interview final month that the U.S. and different nations will allow a “genocide” of avoidable overdose deaths if leaders keep the established order of criminalization.
Petro additionally not too long ago talked about the prospects of legalizing marijuana in Colombia as one technique of lowering the affect of the illicit market. And he signaled that the coverage change needs to be adopted by releasing people who find themselves presently in jail over hashish.
He spoke concerning the financial potential of a authorized hashish trade, one the place small cities in locations just like the Andes, Corinto and Miranda may stand to learn from authorized marijuana cultivation, probably with none licensing necessities.
The president additionally signaled that he’d be fascinated about exploring the thought of exporting hashish to different nations the place the plant is authorized.
In the meantime, within the Colombian Senate, a lawmaker is championing one other legalization invoice.
Sen. Gustavo Bolívar launched the measure in July, and he stated that the reform is inside attain now that the nation’s Congress has a liberal majority of lawmakers who match inside a political coalition often known as the Historic Pact.
U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), who chairs the Home Guidelines Committee, cheered the official swearing in of Petro, saying that he appears ahead to “working collectively to…rethink drug coverage, and rather more.”
President Joe Biden, alternatively, appears intent on perpetuating the drug conflict in Colombia, with U.S. navy assist. He launched a memorandum to the protection secretary in August that authorizes the “interdiction of plane fairly suspected to be primarily engaged in illicit drug trafficking in that nation’s airspace.”
He stated that it’s “obligatory due to the extraordinary risk posed by illicit drug trafficking to the nationwide safety of that nation” and since “Colombia has applicable procedures in place to guard towards harmless lack of life within the air and on the bottom in reference to such interdiction, which incorporates efficient means to establish and warn an plane earlier than the usage of drive is directed towards the plane.”
That stated, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a joint look with Petro on Monday that the U.S. usually backs his “holistic strategy” to medicine. The Colombian president, for his half, stated that nations have to “view the conflict on medicine in a different way.”
As a former member of Colombia’s M-19 guerrilla group, Petro has seen the violent battle between guerrilla fighters, narcoparamilitary teams and drug cartels that has been exacerbated by the federal government’s aggressive strategy to drug enforcement.
In line with the United Nations Workplace of Drug Management Coverage (ONDCP), Colombia stays a chief exporter of cocaine, despite “drug provide discount actions in Colombia, reminiscent of eradication of coca bush and destruction of laboratories.”
In 2020, Colombian legislators launched a invoice that might have regulated coca, the plant that’s processed to provide cocaine, in an acknowledgment that the federal government’s decades-long battle towards the drug and its procedures have persistently failed. That laws cleared a committee, however it was in the end shelved by the general conservative legislature.
Advocates are optimistic that such a proposal may advance beneath a Petro administration. The president hasn’t taken a transparent stance on the laws itself, however he campaigned on legalizing marijuana and promoted the thought of hashish as an alternative choice to cocaine.
Former Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos has additionally been crucial of the drug conflict and embraced reform. In an editorial revealed earlier than he left workplace, he criticized the United Nations and U.S. President Richard Nixon for his or her position in setting a drug conflict normal that has proved ineffective at finest and counterproductive at worst.
“It’s time we discuss accountable authorities regulation, search for methods to chop off the drug mafias’ air provide, and deal with the issues of drug use with better sources for prevention, care and hurt discount with regard to public well being and the social cloth,” he stated.
“This reflection should be international in scope with a purpose to be efficient,” Santos, who’s a member of the pro-reform International Fee on Drug Coverage, stated. “It should even be broad, together with participation not solely of governments but additionally of academia and civil society. It should attain past regulation enforcement and judicial authorities and contain consultants in public well being, economists and educators, amongst different disciplines.”
Picture ingredient courtesy of Bryan Pocius.