Colombia’s President Calls For Cannabis Legalization
Over the weekend Colombian President Gustavo Petro urged his nation’s Congress to legalize cannabis for adult use, stating in a social media post (translated from Spanish to English) that “the prohibition of marijuana in Colombia only brings violence.”
“The empowerment of mafia organizations shows the failure of prohibition and the absence of alternative measures to simple prohibition,” President Petro also stated in his social media post. “I ask the Colombian Congress to legalize marijuana and remove this crop from violence.”
La caída de Namoussir Mounir, enlace entre carteles colombianos y mexicanos con carteles de los balcanes, quien residía en Cartagena, muestra el grado de multinacionalización de las mafias de la cocaína.
Hoy existen carteles mucho más poderosos que en le época de Pablo Escobar.… pic.twitter.com/VwZUxdsZBR
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) March 2, 2025
This is not the first time that Colombia’s current president has publicly expressed support for cannabis legalization. In late 2023, when a push for legalization in Colombia failed, President Gustavo Petro called out lawmakers for ‘helping to perpetuate illegal drug trafficking and the violence associated with the unregulated trade.’
Colombia is home to an emerging legal medical cannabis industry, including the legalized exporting of medical cannabis products. Colombia’s legal industry exported over $10.8 million worth of medical cannabis products in 2023.
Cannabis is currently legal at a national level for adult use in Uruguay, Canada, Malta, Luxembourg, Germany, and South Africa. Additionally, cannabis is legal at a state level in two dozen states in the U.S., and regional adult-use cannabis commerce pilot trials are currently operating in the Netherlands and Switzerland.
