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Colombia’s Congress Agrees To Final Marijuana Legalization Bill, Which Key Senator Expects To Be Enacted By June

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Colombia’s Chamber of Representatives and Senate have voted to reconcile their respective variations of marijuana legalization payments that lately superior, with each our bodies accepting minor adjustments to create a unified closing product that’s now set to advance to key votes within the new 12 months.

As a result of the legalization proposal would amend the nation’s Structure, the laws should move each chambers once more in 2023—and a key Senate sponsor of the invoice says that she count on it to be formally enacted by June.

The reconciliation course of passed off a couple of week after the Senate overwhelmingly permitted its model of the reform laws. The invoice had beforehand obtained preliminary approval in Colombia’s Chamber of Representatives.

The reconciliation handed the Chamber in a 103-39 vote, as Infobae reported.

Lawmakers accepted the Chamber’s provision barring the possession and use of unregulated psychaocative substances with out a medical prescription, for instance. It additionally limits marijuana consumption and advertising and marketing close to college zones and in public areas.

A bit adopted from the Senate model offers with respecting the autonomy of indigenous communities and having the federal government situation a decree recognizing their proper to control the plant and “assure interculturality as a necessary aspect of the basic proper to well being,” in accordance with a translation.

The final main change involved the efficient date of the legislation, with lawmakers accepting the Chamber’s model, which says that the legislation takes impact 12 months after implementation of the laws.

“For the primary time in historical past, Colombia is advancing at such a stage on this dialogue,” Sen. María José Pizarro Rodríguez, sponsor of the the Senate legalization invoice, stated, including that supporters “hope that regularization shall be a actuality in June.”

“We hope that within the second spherical this Undertaking shall be permitted and can assist the expansion of the Colombian countryside and scale back the crime of drug trafficking within the nation,” Rep. Saray Elena Robayo Bechara stated.

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.

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 result of absurd prohibitionism, has introduced us plenty of blood, armed battle, mafias and crime.”

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

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

The invoice will prohibit possession and public consumption at faculties and sure public areas. It additionally requires public schooling campaigns and the promotion of substance misuse remedy providers.

The Colombian Chamber of Representatives gave preliminary approval to a legalization invoice in October. Along with Osuna, the top 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 bear eight debates in complete, 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 shall be working to facilitate a “sooner, more easy” 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 lately 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 ought to be adopted by releasing people who find themselves at present in jail over hashish.

He spoke in regards to 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 enthusiastic about 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 appears to be like ahead to “working collectively to…rethink drug coverage, and far 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 “vital due to the extraordinary risk posed by illicit drug trafficking to the nationwide safety of that nation” and since “Colombia has acceptable 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 using drive is directed towards 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 so that they don’t miss any developments.

Study extra about our marijuana invoice tracker and turn out to be a supporter on Patreon to get entry.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a joint look with Petro in October that the U.S. usually backs his “holistic method” 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 method to drug enforcement.

Based on the United Nations Workplace of Drug Management Coverage (ONDCP), Colombia stays a chief exporter of cocaine,  regardless of  “drug provide discount actions in Colombia, corresponding to 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 struggle towards the drug and its procedures have constantly failed. That laws cleared a committee, however it was finally 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 essential of the drug conflict and embraced reform. In an editorial printed 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 commonplace that has confirmed 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 higher sources for prevention, care and hurt discount with regard to public well being and the social material,” he stated.

“This reflection should be international in scope with a view to be efficient,” Santos, who’s a member of the pro-reform World 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 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, informed 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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