Academics Offer Proposals to Colombia’s New Government on Cannabis and Coca Leaf Policy

In yet another effort amid failed attempts to wage an effective war on drugs, academics from Universidad de los Andes have just stated that Colombia needs to rethink its strategy and focus its efforts on reducing poverty and violence in territories affected by illicit economies, rather than exclusively pursuing a reduction in the supply of drugs.

Their views come to light just before the country faces the presidential runoff election on June 21, which will choose the successor to Gustavo Petro. “The next government’s drug policy must begin with an understanding of the impact of the illicit coca and cannabis economies on the country,” say Maria Alejandra Velez and Samuel Quevedo in Macro Note 71 of Economia Uniandes–CESED, corresponding to the month of June.

Velez, full professor at the Faculty of Economics and director of rural development, illicit economies and environment at the Center for Studies on Security and Drugs (CESED), and Quevedo, research assistant at CESED, state that “the academic evidence accumulated over recent decades shows the limited effectiveness of several of the policies implemented so far.”

Fifty Years of Ineffective Drug Policies

For them, looking ahead, the starting point must be reducing poverty and violence even if this comes at the expense of reducing supply. “The focus should be on the provision of public goods in coca-growing regions, on the regulation of adult-use cannabis and non-psychoactive coca markets, and on leading the global diplomatic conversation about the impact of the war on drugs on producing countries,” they say, emphasizing that “the work is not only the government’s responsibility.”

They recall that Colombia has spent more than fifty years implementing supply-reduction policies (forced eradication, aerial fumigation, seizures, destruction of laboratories, crop-substitution programs, among others) targeting cocaine and cannabis within the framework of the so-called “war on drugs,” yet the production and consumption of these and other psychoactive substances has grown significantly both in the country and around the world.

“These policies have proven ineffective in reducing both supply and demand, while also entailing enormous social, environmental, and fiscal costs,” the authors warn. “Furthermore, they have not curbed violence nor dismantled the armed governance structures of these illicit economies.”

Currently, Colombia remains the world’s leading producer of cocaine; in 2023 it accounted for more than 70 percent of global potential production, according to United Nations analyses. The country is also a major regional producer of illicit adult-use cannabis, with productive capacity that supplies virtually all domestic demand and serves a regional export market reaching Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, and Panama, among others.

“The next government will face significant challenges amid a complex international landscape,” warn Velez and Quevedo, who believe that the war on drugs led by the United States “has hardened its stance toward Colombia amid the remilitarization and resecuritization of its drug policy.” They also anticipate that Colombia’s conditional decertification in September of last year, something that had not occurred since 1996-1997, could lead to major reductions in military and financial cooperation for Colombia, further complicating the situation.

Thus, the landscape that Colombia’s next government will face in drug policy “will undoubtedly be very complex,” they say, making it “necessary to evaluate any strategy before scaling it nationwide, thereby prioritizing the well-being of communities.”

The authors of the note summarize recommendations put forward by academics and several researchers that were recently published in the book From Cultivation to Consumption: Debates on Drug Trafficking, Violence, and Drug Policy in Colombia.

What to Do With Cannabis and the Coca Leaf

Regarding cannabis, the executive branch should promote a coordinated legislative strategy to advance the regulation of adult-use cannabis in the new Congress, including discussion of a regulated market pilot program that would allow the effectiveness of regulation to be assessed based on public health, violence, and consumption indicators.

According to the academics, the new government should also lead a coordinated strategy to reform Article 49 of the Constitution, which prohibits the possession and consumption of narcotic or psychotropic substances except under medical prescription. This has generated significant contradictions with current jurisprudence and represents an obstacle to regulatory efforts through ordinary legislation.

They also recommend, among other measures, that the cannabis regulatory system fulfill three key objectives: the development of a public health policy for adult-use cannabis, the improvement of urban and rural security, and a market design that allows fair competition, social equity, and environmental sustainability.

In addition, they recommend establishing interinstitutional relations with countries and U.S. states that have successfully regulated cannabis in order to gather lessons regarding market design and public health approaches.

As for the coca leaf, they recommend conducting a market study to calculate the potential demand for coca-leaf-derived products in Colombia and the extent of coca cultivation needed to supply the national market. In that regard, they propose amending Article 3 of Law 30 of 1986 to enable industrial uses of the coca leaf and submit them for approval by the Congress of the Republic.

They advise that the Ministry of Health issue a decree recognizing the coca leaf as an ingredient in alcoholic beverages and food products, subject to the approval of the legislative proposal, and review the approval mechanisms for ethnic products, including those based on coca leaf, currently reviewed by the National Narcotics Fund (FNE), the National Institute for Food and Drug Surveillance (INVIMA), and the Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA).

They propose that public policy interventions in coca-growing regions should follow a phased intervention model prioritizing regional and off-farm investment in public services rather than plot-level crop substitution. The necessary conditions for the development of a viable legal economy must first be ensured, taking into account regional, environmental, and ethnic differences.

An obvious next step follows from this consideration: significant investments must be made in the provision of rural infrastructure (electrification, improvement and expansion of tertiary roads, among others) according to the geography of coca cultivation and its connection to markets.

Finally, they recall that forced-eradication efforts have limited effectiveness due to the “balloon effect” and the high rates of replanting in the absence of viable economic alternatives. However, if such efforts are to continue, they should be limited to very specific circumstances where they do not affect the peasant economy, and their effects on violence should be evaluated.