Colombian lawmakers have reintroduced a invoice to legalize marijuana nationwide for the approaching legislative session.

Just just one thirty day period immediately after the past model stalled out in the Senate at the ultimate phase of an eight-action legislative approach, Rep. Juan Carlos Losada and Sen. María José Pizarro declared on Monday that they&#8217re hoping all over again to enact the reform.

The legislation was previously permitted in the the two chambers last calendar year as part of the two-calendar year process that constitutional amendments will have to bear. It then handed the Chamber of Deputies all over again in Might and innovative by means of a Senate committee very last month. But even though it received a vast majority of the votes on the floor, it came up quick of the 54-vote threshold it requirements for passage.

Losada recently told CNN that he faults President Gustavo Petro&#8217s administration for not accomplishing extra to advocate for the invoice, but &#8220we will come again to it.&#8221

&#8220We have a important month ahead of us to have an understanding of who we can rely on and who can assistance us reach our goal,&#8221 he stated.

In a Twitter post very last week, he additional that reform supporters &#8220keep on the combat to advance in the adjust of the failed prohibitionist plan versus medication, to progress in a policy guided by the guidelines of public health, the avoidance of usage and the promise of purchaser care.&#8221

Neither Losada nor Pizarro mentioned any substantive adjustments to the monthly bill when compared to the previous edition. Losado did say, nevertheless, that the legislation was submitted with 70 initial cosponsors signed on.

&#8220Colombia has been the epicenter of the unsuccessful prohibitionist struggle in opposition to prescription drugs,&#8221 he explained. &#8220We have the legitimacy to advertise a new technique where by it is the Condition and its institutions that regulate the current market and not illegality and mafias.&#8221

At a community listening to in the Senate panel very last year, Justice Minister Néstor Osuna in the same way said that Colombia has been the sufferer of “a failed war that was designed 50 several years ago and, thanks to absurd prohibitionism, has introduced us a large amount of blood, armed conflict, mafias and criminal offense.”

The Chamber of Representatives gave original acceptance to the legalization monthly bill last yr. The head of the Inside Ministry also spoke in favor of the reform proposal at the time. That vote came soon after a congressional committee superior this measure and a independent legalization bill.

Petro, a progressive who has been strongly advocating for an worldwide conclude to drug criminalization given that staying inaugurated past year, has talked over the feasible added benefits of hashish legalization.

Previous 12 months, the president sent a speech at a meeting of the United Nations (UN), urging member nations to fundamentally modify their methods to drug policy and disband with prohibition.

Petro has also talked about the prospective customers of legalizing marijuana in Colombia as a person means of lessening the influence of the illicit marketplace. And he signaled that the policy improve should be followed by releasing folks who are currently in prison around cannabis.

He spoke about the financial opportunity of a lawful cannabis business, a person exactly where smaller towns in destinations like the Andes, Corinto and Miranda could stand to benefit from lawful marijuana cultivation, quite possibly devoid of any licensing requirements.

The president also signaled that he’d be intrigued in discovering the idea of ​​exporting hashish to other nations around the world where the plant is lawful.

Petro satisfied with the president of Mexico past year, and the pair announced that they will be bringing together other Latin American leaders for an worldwide meeting targeted on on “redesigning and rethinking drug policy” given the “failure” of prohibition. Mexican lawmakers are also pursuing national legalization.

According to the United Nations Business of Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Colombia continues to be a chief exporter of cocaine,  despite  “drug provide reduction pursuits in Colombia, this sort of as eradication of coca bush and destruction of laboratories.”

In 2020, Colombian legislators launched a invoice that would have controlled coca, the plant that is processed to generate cocaine, in an acknowledgment that the government’s a long time-prolonged fight against the drug and its methods have continually failed. That laws cleared a committee, but it was in the long run shelved by the all round conservative legislature.

Advocates had been optimistic that such a proposal could advance under the Petro administration. The president hasn’t taken a clear stance on the laws alone, but he campaigned on legalizing cannabis and promoted the plan of ​​cannabis as an substitute to cocaine.

Previous Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos has also been critical of the drug war and embraced reform. In an op-ed printed in advance of he left office, he criticized the United Nations and U.S. President Richard Nixon for their part in setting a drug war conventional that has demonstrated ineffective at ideal and counterproductive at worst.

“It is time we speak about liable authorities regulation, look for ways to cut off the drug mafias’ air offer, and tackle the troubles of drug use with increased means for prevention, treatment and hurt reduction with regard to general public wellness and the social cloth,” he reported.

“This reflection need to be worldwide in scope in buy to be productive,” Santos, who is a member of the pro-reform Global Commission on Drug Plan, said. “It ought to also be broad, such as participation not only of governments but also of academia and civil society. It have to reach further than law enforcement and judicial authorities and entail specialists in general public health and fitness, economists and educators, amid other disciplines.”

Meanwhile, a U.S. congressional delegation returned from a pay a visit to to Colombia last year, and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who was aspect of the trip, explained to Cannabis Moment that one particular topic of his discussions with officers in the state was that the environment has “lost the war on medication.”

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Image element courtesy of Bryan Pocius.

The article Colombian Lawmakers Introduce New Marijuana Legalization Bill One particular Thirty day period Immediately after Prior Version Stalled appeared to start with on Marijuana Minute.





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