Thursday, November 21
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Colombian Senate Approves Marijuana Legalization Bill, Bringing Country Closer To Ending Prohibition

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The Colombian Senate has overwhelmingly accepted a invoice to legalize marijuana nationwide, although there are nonetheless extra legislative steps that have to be taken earlier than it’s doubtlessly enacted into legislation.

The invoice, which has additionally already obtained preliminary approval within the nation’s Chamber of Representatives, was accepted on the Senate ground in the course of the fourth spherical of debate on Tuesday in a 56-3 vote.

Lawmakers have met a number of instances in current weeks to debate the reform proposal, which might amend the nation’s Structure to finish hashish prohibition for adults.

This motion occurred about two weeks after the legalization invoice handed the First Committee of the Senate.

At a public listening to within the Senate panel final month, Justice Minister Néstor Osuna stated that Colombia has been the sufferer of “a failed conflict that was designed 50 years in the past and, as a consequence of absurd prohibitionism, has introduced us a variety of blood, armed battle, mafias and crime.”

The proposed constitutional modification, sponsored by Rep. Juan Carlos Losada, contemplates the general public well being and financial impacts of legalization, in addition to the ideological precept of particular person autonomy. If enacted, officers would have six months to promulgate guidelines for the adult-use market.

A supplementary legislative evaluation gives background on the historical past of hashish coverage in Colombia, whereas additionally describing reform developments in different nations equivalent to Mexico and the USA.

The legalization bill would help “the fitting of the free growth of the persona, permitting residents to determine on the consumption of hashish in a regulated authorized framework,” it says. And it might mitigate “arbitrary discriminatory or unequal therapy in entrance of the inhabitants that consumes.”

The invoice will limit possession and public consumption at colleges and sure public areas. It additionally requires public training campaigns and the promotion of substance misuse therapy companies.

The Colombian Chamber of Representatives gave preliminary approval to a legalization invoice in October. Along with Osuna, the pinnacle of the Inside Ministry additionally spoke in favor of the reform proposal on the time. That vote got here shortly after a congressional committee superior this measure and a separate legalization invoice.

As a proposed constitutional modification, the laws must endure eight debates in whole, separated over two separate calendar years.

The justice minister additionally mentioned legislative legalization efforts at an occasion targeted on hashish reform final month, emphasizing the necessity to enact a coverage change the promotes financial progress and public well being.

As lawmakers transfer to approve the reform invoice, Osuna stated that authorities businesses will probably be working to facilitate a “sooner, easier” licensure course of.

President Gustavo Petro, a progressive who has been strongly advocating for a global finish to drug criminalization since being inaugurated in August, has mentioned the potential advantages of hashish legalization.

In September, the president delivered a speech at a gathering of the United Nations (UN), urging member nations to essentially change their approaches to drug coverage and disband with prohibition.

Petro additionally not too long ago talked about the prospects of legalizing marijuana in Colombia  as one technique of decreasing 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 business, one the place small cities in locations just like the Andes, Corinto and Miranda may stand to profit from authorized marijuana cultivation, probably with none licensing necessities.

The president additionally signaled that he’d be all in favour of exploring the concept of ​​exporting hashish to different nations the place the plant is authorized.

U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), who chairs the Home Guidelines Committee, cheered the official swearing in of Petro , saying that he seems to be ahead to “working collectively to…rethink drug coverage, and rather more.”

President Joe Biden, however, appears intent on perpetuating the drug conflict in Colombia, with U.S. army help. He launched a memorandum to the protection secretary in August that authorizes the “interdiction of plane moderately suspected to be primarily engaged in illicit drug trafficking in that nation’s airspace.”

He stated that it’s “needed 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 in opposition to harmless lack of life within the air and on the bottom in reference to such interdiction, which incorporates efficient means to determine and warn an plane earlier than the usage of power is directed in opposition to the plane.”

Petro additionally met with the president of Mexico final month, and the pair introduced that they are going to be bringing collectively different Latin American leaders for a global convention targeted on on “redesigning and rethinking drug coverage” given the “failure” of prohibition. Mexican lawmakers are additionally pursuing nationwide legalization.

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Marijuana Second is monitoring greater than 1,500 hashish, psychedelics and drug coverage payments in state legislatures and Congress this 12 months. Patreon supporters pledging not less than $25/month get entry to our interactive maps, charts and listening to calendar in order that they don’t miss any developments.

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a joint look with Petro in October that the U.S. typically backs his “holistic strategy” to medication. The Colombian president, for his half, stated that nations have to “view the conflict on medication in another 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,  regardless of  “drug provide discount actions in Colombia, equivalent to eradication of coca bush and destruction of laboratories.”

In 2020, Colombian legislators launched a invoice that will have regulated coca, the plant that’s processed to provide cocaine, in an acknowledgment that the federal government’s decades-long battle in opposition to the drug and its procedures have constantly failed. That laws cleared a committee, but it surely was in the end shelved by the general conservative legislature.

Advocates are optimistic that such a proposal may advance underneath the Petro administration. The president hasn’t taken a transparent stance on the laws itself, however he campaigned on legalizing marijuana and promoted the concept 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 function in setting a drug conflict normal that has confirmed ineffective at greatest and counterproductive at worst.

“It’s time we discuss accountable authorities regulation, search for methods to chop off the drug mafias’ air provide, and sort out the issues of drug use with better assets 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 the intention 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 in addition of academia and civil society. It should attain past legislation enforcement and judicial authorities and contain specialists in public well being, economists and educators, amongst different disciplines.”

In the meantime, a U.S. congressional delegation returned from a go to to Colombia in October, and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who was a part of the journey, instructed Marijuana Second that one theme of his discussions with officers within the nation was that the world has “misplaced the conflict on medication.”

Picture aspect courtesy of Bryan Pocius.



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