Colombian President Gustavo Petro has said that “cocaine is no worse than whisky” as the production of coca, the drug’s base ingredient, surges under his presidency.
Petro, a leftist former guerrilla group member who has previously called the US-led war on drugs a failure, said during a televised cabinet meeting that cocaine — of which Colombia is by far the largest producer — was only illegal “because it’s made in Latin America”.
“The business could easily be dismantled if cocaine were legalised worldwide,” Petro said during the chaotic cabinet session on Tuesday night. “It would sell like wine.”
Petro’s comments are likely to raise eyebrows in Washington, days after Colombia and the US narrowly averted a trade war over Petro’s initial refusal to receive Colombian deportees handcuffed on American military aircraft.
US President Donald Trump has also taken a strong line against drug trafficking, making threats to Mexico since his inauguration over the trafficking of narcotics, especially the synthetic opioid fentanyl, over the US border.
In Colombia, the area used for coca cultivation grew by 10 per cent to 253,000 hectares in 2023, the first full calendar year of Petro’s presidency and the most recent year for which data is available, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Potential cocaine production — the amount that could be produced if all coca leaves were harvested — increased by 53 per cent to 2,664 tonnes.
His government has drastically reduced military and police operations that target coca farmers, instead prioritising seizures of drug shipments at sea.
Pedro Piedrahita Bustamante, political science professor at the Tecnológico de Antioquia university, said Petro’s comments reflected his position that traditional anti-drug policies had failed to curb trafficking and address public health problems — but that the president’s policies “have seen many failures, particularly in the fight against these criminal networks that are present in various territories of our country”.
Petro made little mention during the cabinet meeting of the crisis in Colombia’s north-eastern Catatumbo region, where rebel groups involved in the drug trade have displaced more than 50,000 people in recent weeks.
The meeting, carried on national television, quickly descended into chaos as three cabinet members, including vice-president Francia Márquez, blasted their boss for bringing in veteran political operator Armando Benedetti as chief of staff.
Also criticised was Laura Sarabia, a 30-year-old confidante of the president who was installed as foreign minister last week despite having no foreign policy experience. Benedetti and Sarabia were at the centre of a sprawling government scandal known as “nannygate”, involving wiretapping, illicit campaign financing and a missing briefcase of cash. Both have denied wrongdoing.
Jorge Rojas, the head of the presidency’s administrative department, resigned on Wednesday morning, having only taken the post vacated by Sarabia last week. Culture minister Juan David Correa also quit on Wednesday. Interior minister Juan Fernando Cristo said in a post on X that the cabinet was “unsustainable” and proposed that the front bench resign en masse.
Petro said in a post on Instagram that the infighting was the result of some of his ministers seeking to position themselves ahead of next year’s election. Under Colombia’s constitution the president may not seek a second term.
Nicholas Watson, Latin America managing director at consultancy Teneo, said in a note on Wednesday: “If the idea to televise the cabinet meeting was conceived as a way to show Petro as unruffled by the crisis with the US over tariffs that he triggered on 26 January, it backfired spectacularly.
He added: “Petro was unable to prevent the meeting turning into an outpouring of recriminations that reflects poorly on his leadership and administration.”
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