In October 2018, Canada became the second country on the planet to legalize cannabis for recreational use. In January of this year, it opened the door to prescription psychedelics to treat depression or anxiety. And starting the first month of next year, citizens of one of its provinces, British Columbia, will be able to carry 2.5 grams of hard drugs like opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine or ecstasy in their pockets.
Thus the region is facing one of the most dramatic crises in its history: the opium overdose. At the same time, due to this, six people die in a day. To counteract the drama, they’ll implement a three-year pilot that seeks to cure users of addictions rather than jail them.
It’s clear to this district that you can only fight what you talk about. By removing these drugs from excessive prohibition, the barrier to consumer communication, education and support campaigns is removed, as has been the case with tobacco. Cigarettes are the only consumption in the world, with nearly sixty million people having stopped smoking in the past two decades as a result of increased taxes, advertising bans, public education campaigns and legislation on a smoke-free environment.
Canada teaches us a lesson. It breaks norms about our relationship with drugs as a society, in some cases, defends their medical uses, in others, recognizes their lethality and danger, releases prison sentences and provides aid. .
This context, of a country that seems distant to us as well as away from our problems, can make us think that we are far from making such a revolutionary leap in the way we look at the world of drugs. But not so far from here, in the continent’s south, in Uruguay — six times smaller than Colombia — nine years before an older president became the first in the world to legalize the production and sale of marijuana.
Here too, in Colombia, two years ago Ivan Marulanda and Feliciano Valencia filed a bill in Congress seeking to regulate cocaine. This initiative proposed state control of the production and commercialization of coca leaves and cocaine to move this business away from the mafia. The text mentions rights such as a decent life, health and free development of personality as well as the need to reduce the risk of consumption. The project passed a debate in the Senate with twelve votes in favor and zero against and was later adjourned. But there was something historical sown: The world’s largest exporter of cocaine, which has caused thousands of deaths and millions of victims, can finally claim its moral right to talk about cocaine without penalty.
