UN: Colombia's Drug Policy Discriminates Against Rural Poor

A senior United Nations official urged the Colombian government to rethink its drug policies and focus on criminalizing traffickers rather than cultivators, it was revealed Wednesday.

“In Colombia the drug issue emerged with drug-trafficking, not with the cultivation of the coca leaf,” Francisco Thoumi from the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), a body affiliated to the U.N, said in an official statement. 

“It's easier to attack the system's weakest links,” he added, explaining that the country's drug policies have so far focused on the eradication and fumigation of coca crops, a policy that has mainly affected small farmers.

“In my opinion, this approach is seriously problematic," added Thoumi. 

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According to the INCB annual report that Thoumi presented in Bogota, Colombia remains the country with the largest surface number of coca crops in the world, despite decades of eradication policies.

In 2015, the total surface increased by 44 percent compared with 2013 – representing almost 70,000 hectares, the report claims. 

The rise can be partly attributed to the peace negotiations currently going on in Havana between the government and FARC, suggested Thoumi.

The U.N. official also praised Colombia's recent decision to stop fumigating coca crops with potentially carcinogenic glyphosate, as well as Bogota's move to legalize the medical use of marijuana.

“Colombia has opened a debate in order to change the approach (on drug policies). We have to look for other options and hopefully this will spark greater debate – but the issue with a debate is that the world is horribly prohibitionist,” he concluded.

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