Development: On 1 October Colombia’s President Iván Duque signed a decree allowing the police to seize even the smallest amounts of drugs in an attempt to crack down on micro-trafficking.
Significance: Duque’s decree is a radical departure from the drug strategy adopted by the administration led by his predecessor Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018). Santos had pushed through a law in 2012 decriminalising possession of small quantities of marijuana and cocaine for personal use, on the grounds that resources should be used to go after drug-traffickers rather than drug consumers.
- “Micro-trafficking and drug consumption around schools, universities, and parks has increased exponentially in recent years and we cannot be indifferent to that”, Duque contended. The new decree will empower the police to confiscate even the small quantities of marijuana (up to 20 grams) and cocaine (up to one gram) legally permitted for personal use.
- Senator Gustavo Bolívar, of the left-wing Lista de la decencia, led by Senator Gustavo Petro, who Duque defeated in the second round of the presidential elections this year, tweeted that narco-traffickers would be celebrating the decree as “global experience shows that penalising the minimum dose elevates the cost of drugs and makes them wealthier”. Bolívar also argued that the decree would do nothing to prevent an increase in drug addiction among Colombian youths as this could only be combated “with education not repression”.
- Duque’s decree coincides with the release of a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which claimed that the area dedicated to coca cultivation in Colombia had soared to 171,000 hectares in 2017, up 17% on the previous year. In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) last week Duque said Colombia had “a moral duty” to fight drug trafficking.
Looking Ahead: Duque’s decree could face legal challenges. Human rights groups, and even a former president of the constitutional court (CC), Alfredo Beltrán, questioned whether the decree was actually legal or whether it constituted an unconstitutional violation of individual liberty. The CC had approved the 2012 law decriminalising possession of small quantities of illicit drugs.
