Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos signed a decree on Tuesday that fully legalizes medical marijuana. The move indicates a major shift away from U.S.-supported policies that focus on the prevention of narcotics production. The new decree permits the cultivation, processing, import and export of marijuana for medical and research purposes.
President Santos said the decree puts Colombia "in the group of countries that are at the forefront... in the use of natural resources to fight disease," reports the BBC. These countries include Austria, Belgium, Canada, Israel, and some U.S. states.
At the same time, Santos maintained that the country would continue to fight illegal drug production and trafficking, explains The Guardian. Colombia's long-term incorporation of a no-tolerance, U.S.-backed approach to eliminate the production of drug crops is thought to have contributed to the significant decline in levels of violence in the country through the past 15 years, according to Foreign Policy.
Colombia is one of the world's largest producers of cocaine, and drug cultivation and manufacture has driven the half-century of civil conflict in the country, serving as a source of capital for rebel groups like the notorious Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
In addition to killing more than 220,000 people, the ongoing violence among rebel forces, paramilitaries, and the government has killed over 200,000 people and displaced over 6 million others, according to Colombia Reports. In the past, Santos has said that marijuana legalization would be an important move to take drug production out drug traffickers' control, as outlined by the BBC.
Until now, the production and consumption of marijuana in Colombia has occupied a legal grey zone. A 1986 law permitted the cultivation, export and sale of medical and scientific marijuana, but it has not been formally regulated until Tuesday's decree, Reuters describes.
Under the new law, anyone wanting to grow marijuana will need to apply to Colombia's National Narcotics Council for a licence.
