Colombia: stop fining drug users
AMTwo thousand December 10, 2023
Colombia's government will remove fines for consuming small amounts of the drug, in line with a change of focus in the fight against drug trafficking in the world's largest cocaine-producing country. A government decree published by local media announces the repeal of sanctions against the possession of "narcotic or psychotropic substances" intended for personal use and not for sale. The measure does not change the penalties of up to 20 years of imprisonment for crimes related to drug trafficking provided for by Colombian law, but puts an end to the fines of around fifty dollars that the police impose on users. "If the Constitution authorizes doses for personal use, police action should not focus on the persecution of drug addicts but on that of the big drug lords", explained President Gustavo Petro on the social network .) avoid the criminalization of drug addicts through corrective measures", reads the decree of 7 December. The possession and use of small quantities of marijuana, cocaine and some synthetic drugs had already been decriminalized by a decision of the Constitutional Court in 1994, but the fines were maintained by a decision by Ivan Duque 's conservative government in 2018. Petro, who also ordered security forces to cease operations against small-scale coca leaf farmers, advocates a change of direction in the fight against drug that Colombia is carrying out with the economic help of the United States, the main South American cocaine market. For its part, the opposition claims that these decisions limit the authorities' ability to fight drug trafficking, in a context of expansion of illicit crops and increased local consumption.