Colombia’s Duque urges U.S. to reduce demand for drugs as consumption rises

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Colombian President Iván Duque on Wednesday (8) urged the United States to reduce the demand for drugs in its territory after consumption soared last year in this country and the rest of the world.

“In the co-responsibility procedures that we have to adopt, I think we have much more to do in the U.S. on prevention,” Duque said at a virtual conference organized by the Atlantic Council think tank.

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The Colombian leader spoke at the event, where the report “A Plan for Covid Recovery in Colombia and Why it Matters to the United States”, prepared by the joint working group led by Senators Ben Cardin (Democrat) and Roy Blunt (Republican), was presented.

In his speech in English, Duque stressed that Colombia has achieved record numbers in the fight against drugs, destroyed cocaine laboratories on its territory and apprehended drug traffickers, but that “something compelling” must also be done to reduce demand from the United States.

“I believe that this is something significant for the construction of peace in the long term,” the president stressed.

Coca crops in Colombia were reduced in 2020 to 143,000 hectares, 7% less than the area planted in 2019, according to the annual report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) presented last June 9 in Bogota.

At the end of last October, the U.S. announced a new strategy to fight drugs in Colombia, which has as its pillars the reduction of production, the development of rural areas, and the protection of the environment.

To reduce supply, the U.S. wants anti-money laundering efforts and efforts to eradicate drugs, prohibit drugs, reduce demand and destroy processing laboratories to be linked to efforts to bring drug traffickers to justice.

Regarding rural security and development, the initiative advocates promoting these with the implementation of the peace agreement the Colombian government reached in 2016 with the now-defunct FARC guerrillas and investing in these areas and facilitating access to the judiciary.