Commission of Colombian deputies approves proposal to legalize cannabis

As Colombia's new president steps up efforts to reform global drug policy, the country's lawmakers on Tuesday approved a bill to legalize and regulate cannabis across the country, passing it through committee with near-unanimous support.

Liberal deputy Carlos Ardila's bill was passed by the First Committee of the House of Representatives by 31 votes to 2.

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The proposal to legalize cannabis in Colombia aims to regulate «the consumption of cannabis by persons of legal age, thereby guaranteeing the fundamental right to free development of the personality».

It would also promote «a different approach to the one used to date in the fight against the harmful effects on health and society that this psychoactive substance can have, changing a purely penal approach for one of harm reduction and public health.»

«Similarly, this legislation will promote strategies that benefit the rural environment, and implement others to combat illegal trafficking of this substance, focusing on public health and social growth,» says the translated description.

The proposal would create regulations and establish a tax structure for legal cannabis sales. Revenues would be distributed to local municipalities to support public health, education and agricultural initiatives.

The bill is one of two cannabis legalization measures currently moving through the Colombian legislature. Another proposal by Liberal deputy Juan Carlos Losada has already been adopted by the first committee last month.

But so far, the President has not supported any of the specific cannabis reform bills, even though he has strongly criticized the overall prohibitionist approach to the war on drugs.

Last month, Gustavo Petro told members of the United Nations (UN) that «democracy will die» if the world's powers don't unite to end prohibition and adopt a different approach, when millions of lives are at stake under the current regime.

The president said in another interview last month that the U.S. and other countries are enabling a «genocide» of preventable overdose deaths by maintaining the status quo of criminalization.

Gustavo Petro also recently spoke about the prospects for cannabis legalization in Colombia as a means of reducing the influence of the illicit market. He indicated that this change in policy should be followed by the release of those currently imprisoned for cannabis.

He spoke of the economic potential of a legal cannabis industry, in which small towns in the Andes, Corinto and Miranda could benefit from legal cannabis cultivation, possibly without licensing requirements.

The Chairman also indicated that he would be interested in exploring the idea of exporting cannabis to other countries where this plant is legal.