World News | Blinken supports Colombia’s ‘holistic’ approach to drug policy

Bogota, Oct 4 (AP) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday backed Colombia’s recent efforts to rethink its drug policy and said the Biden administration and Colombia’s newly elected government will work together on rural development programs and interdiction efforts, while sharing intelligence on drug Sales group.

Blinken and Colombian President Gustavo Petro made the comments after their meeting in Bogota, the first leg of a trip to South America where the secretary of state will also visit Chile and Peru.

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“We strongly support President Petro’s administration’s holistic approach to combating drugs, including in the United States, through comprehensive rural security, justice, development, environmental protection, supply reduction, and demand reduction,” Blinken said in a news conference.

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly last month, Petro said the U.S.-led effort to combat global drug trafficking was a “failure”. He accused the United States and other developed countries of taking punitive measures against the drug trade that harms small farmers in developing countries.

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On Monday, the Colombian president spoke in a less combative tone.

Following the meeting with Blinken, Petro said both sides talked about a “more flexible” approach to the drug trade aimed at reducing production and consumption across the hemisphere.

Petro said coca growers in remote areas of Colombia should acquire land titles so they can more easily integrate into the legal economy. He suggested the U.S. back a $7 billion plan to buy land for Colombian landless farmers and said an international fund should be established to support projects that would pay some coca farmers to leave the drug trade and become protectors of the Amazon rainforest .

Colombia has struggled to rein in cocaine production as several armed groups took over rural areas abandoned by the FARC following a 2016 peace deal with the government, and the arrival of government agencies has been slow.

Petro said tougher action was needed against white-collar criminals who profit from the cocaine trade in Colombia and the United States, but he argued that enforcement should not target poor farmers who grow coca in remote areas to make ends meet.

Aerial fumigation of coca crops using chemicals will continue to be banned in order to protect the environment, Colombia’s president said, but added that his government would seek to manually eradicate “industrial-scale” coca fields run by organised crime. (Associated Press)

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