Colombia’s President Tells Trump To Legalize Marijuana

The president of Colombia says U.S. President Donald Trump should replace
the policy of marijuana prohibition with a regulatory framework allowing
for adult use and international cannabis exports.

In an post on X last week, Colombian President Gustavo Petro addressed
broader drug policy issues amid a broader feud between the two leaders over
the Trump administration’s military strikes against boats alleged to be
trafficking narcotics.

“Colombia actually provides the money and the deaths in the struggle, while
the U.S. provides the consumption,” Petro said, according to a translation.
“Consumption in the U.S. and the growing consumption in Europe are
responsible for 300,000 murders in Colombia and a million deaths in Latin
America.”

But he also said he proposed to Trump “the opposite” of what the
administration is currently doing—by removing tariffs on Colombian
agriculture goods and legalizing the “export of cannabis” like “any good,”
for example. Petro said that reform could be justified by the United
Nations’s decision to reschedule cannabis under international treaties to
which both countries are parties.

Las guerras que Colombia vive desde hace 5 décadas, primero urbana hasta
1993, después rural, se deben al consumo de cocaína en EEUU; aunque han
habido aportes de gobiernos estadounidenses a la paz de Colombia, han sigo
exigüos y nulos en los últimos años.

Se ha construido una… https://t.co/R2SGZEnDfU

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) October 20, 2025

Trump should also “strengthen the policy of prevention of consumption in
the U.S.” and “scientifically study whether prohibition is necessary, or
rather responsible and state-regulated consumption build a more effective
treaty for the pursuit of narcos’ capital and assets in the world,” the
Colombian president said, as High Times first reported.

Trump last week called Petro an “illegal drug leader” and the U.S. Treasury
Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned the Colombian
president, members of his family and his advisors for alleged involvement
in drug trafficking.

This comes months after Colombian lawmakers gave initial approval to a bill
that would nationally legalize marijuana—with a House committee in August taking
the first step in an extensive legislative process to enact the reform.

Petro has consistently supported legalizing cannabis—and he’s put pressure
on legislators to advance the issue. He said in late 2023 that lawmakers
who voted to shelve a legalization bill that year only helped to perpetuate
illegal drug trafficking and the violence associated with the unregulated
trade.

After a visit to the U.S. in 2023, the Colombian president recalled
smelling the odor of marijuana wafting through the streets of New York
City, remarking on the “enormous hypocrisy” of legal cannabis sales now
taking place in the nation that launched the global drug war decades ago.

Petro also took a lead role at the Latin American and Caribbean Conference
on Drugs in 2023, noting Colombia and Mexico “are the biggest victims of
this policy,” likening the drug war to “a genocide.”

In 2022, Petro delivered a speech at a meeting of the UN, urging member
nations to fundamentally change their approaches to drug policy and disband
with prohibition.

He’s also talked about the prospects of legalizing marijuana in Colombia
as one means of reducing the influence of the illicit market. And he has
signaled that the policy change should be followed by releasing people who
are currently in prison over cannabis.

Trump, for his part, has not embraced federal legalization, though he said
in late August that a decision on a pending marijuana rescheduling proposal
would come within weeks. Much of his drug policy actions of late have
focused on cartels, with controversial extrajudicial attacks on boats in
international waters that were allegedly transporting drugs to the U.S.

*Image element courtesy of Bryan Pocius.*

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Illicit Drug Trade appeared first on Marijuana Moment.