MEXICO CITY (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th November, 2022) Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his Mexican counterpart, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, on Friday expressed their intention to hold a regional conference to rethink drug policies in the region.
"Recognizing the failure in the fight against drugs and the vulnerability of our peoples in the face of this problem, Mexico and Colombia will convene an international conference of Latin American leaders to review and rethink drug policy," Petro and Lopez Obrador said in a joint communique following bilateral talks in Mexico.
Petro has repeatedly said that strategies aimed at tackling illegal drug trafficking in the region have failed. The Colombian president claimed the war on illegal substances and plants, which began half a century ago, has destabilized the region's democracies, led to regional crises and caused a million deaths in Latin America.
In mid-September, Petro said his government would make efforts to convince coca producers to replace it with other profitable agricultural crops. Moreover, he said that the Colombian and US authorities would enhance drug enforcement units' surveillance over the owners and beneficiaries of drug production and trafficking to strengthen the fight against these illegal activities.
Colombia is the world's largest producer and exporter of cocaine. More than 90% of the world's coca plantations are concentrated in the so-called Andean Drug Triangle, which includes Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Coca grows in small quantities on plantations in Panama, Ecuador, southwestern Venezuela, and northeastern Brazil. Hundreds of tons of cocaine are shipped annually from South America to the United States, the largest and most solvent market for narcotic drugs on the continent.
