The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has demanded "the end of the irrational war on drugs" during his speech at the UN General Assembly. Petro also stressed that cocaine consumption is "less poisonous" than the use of coal or oil for the planet and called for a social change to reduce consumption.
For the president, "the real addiction of this phase of human history is the irrational power of profit and money". To justify his statement, he spoke of the"addiction to coal and oil" as the real global danger in the face of drug consumption.
What is more poisonous to humans, cocaine or coal or oil? The dictates of power have ordered that cocaine is the poison and must be pursued, even if it only causes minimal deaths by overdose and more by the mixtures caused by its clandestine nature (...) On the other hand, coal and oil must be protected even if their use could extinguish all, all of humanity
For this reason, the former guerrilla fighter charged against the destruction of drug plantations, stressing that, in doing so, the jungles are destroyed. The same forests that governments say they want to defend as environmentalists:
To destroy the coca plant they throw poisons, glyphosate en masse that runs through the waters, they arrest the growers and imprison them. 'Destroy the plant that kills,' they shout from the north, but the plant is but one more of the millions that perish when they unleash fire on the jungle. As in a paradoxical crossroads. The forest that we are trying to save is, at the same time, destroyed.
He also insisted that the war on drugs is being lost and called for a change of course:
The war on drugs has lasted 40 years; if we do not correct our course and it continues for another 40 years, the United States will see 2,800,000 young people die of overdose from fentanyl, which is not produced in our Latin America.
With these arguments, Petro called for "stopping the irrational war on drugs" and building a society with "less profit and more love".
I demand an end to the irrational war on drugs. Decreasing consumption does not require wars or weapons. It needs all of us to build a better society, more supportive, more caring, where the intensity of life saves from addictions and new slavery. Want less drugs? Think less profit and more love.
Speaking of wars, the former guerrilla gave his own version of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
You gathered the scientists, and they spoke with reason. With mathematics and climatological models they said that the end of the human species was near, that its time is no longer of millennia, not even of centuries. Science set the alarm bells ringing and we stopped listening to it. The war served as an excuse for not taking the necessary measures.
Why war if what we need is to save the human species? What is the use of NATO and empires, if what is coming is the end of intelligence? From Latin America, we call on Ukraine and Russia to make peace.
Pastrana's response
These statements were quickly answered by former President Andres Pastrana on Twitter, with a harsh publication recalling, in passing, the narco-terrorist past of the current Colombian president.
¡Vergüenza!
Petro se declara en la ONU como el gran capo defensor de la cocaína.
Desecha sus efectos sobre la salud pública y desprecia los muertos que, como la Corte Suprema masacrada por su M-19 para Pablo Escobar, dejan las mafias con que hoy pacta el poder.— Andrés Pastrana A (@AndresPastrana_) September 20, 2022
Putin offers closer ties to Petro
Russian President Vladimir Putin took advantage of the presentation of credentials of the new ambassador to Colombia to again show his closeness to Petro.
We share the recent words of the new president (Gustavo) Petro on the constructive approach towards the intensification of relations in the areas of trade, energy, infrastructure, science and technology, education and culture.
In addition, Putin again noted that he sees in Colombia "a promising partner of Russia in Latin America with which we are interested in maintaining friendly relations". In addition, the Russian leader stressed that his country will continue to support the peace process in which the South American country is still immersed.
