Colombia demands int'l community end 'failed' war on drugs in UN address

BOGOTA, Colombia

Colombia's President Gustavo Petro noted the need Tuesday for action against the threat of climate crisis and urged countries to end the "failed" war on drugs during his first speech before the UN General Assembly.

Petro's address is one of the harshest delivered by a Colombian president in denouncing world leaders.

He accused the international community of destroying the most important natural resources while fighting drugs while he talked of the “hypocrisy” of countries to save the environment.

"The culprit of drug addiction is not the jungle, it is the irrationality of their world power," he said.

"The jungle is burning, gentlemen, while you make war and play with it. The forest, the climatic pillar of the world, disappears with all its life. The great sponge that absorbs the planetary CO2 evaporates,” he said. “The savior forest is seen in my country as the enemy to be defeated, as the weed to be extinguished. The space of coca and of the peasants who grow it -- because they have nothing else to grow -- is demonized.”

Petro said plans to destroy the coca by the US involve glyphosate, a product that he said contaminates territories and waters.

"For destroying or possessing the coca leaf, 1 million Latin Americans are killed and 2 million Afro-Americans are imprisoned in North America," he said.

In a defiant tone, he accused rich countries of destroying the rainforest with their consumption practices.

"What is more poisonous to humanity, cocaine, coal or oil?" he asked rhetorically.

Petro drew attention to the need to save the Amazon Rainforest and highlighted the “failed” fight against drugs.

"Forty years have passed since the war on drugs. If we do not correct the course and this is prolonged for another 40 years, the United States will see 2,800,000 young people die of an overdose from fentanyl, which is not produced in our Latin America," he said.

"The war on drugs has failed. The fight against the climate crisis has failed," he added.​​​​​​​