Colombian President Gustavo Petro tells U.N. cocaine "less poisonous" than oil and coal

Colombian President Gustavo Petro called nations of the world before the UN General Assembly for an end the so called "irrational" war on drugs, which he said "has failed." The newly elected Colombian president and former Marxist guerilla compared cocaine to coal and oil. 

During his address, Petro asked for international resources to "save the rainforest" while blaming more developed nations for Latin America's lack of prosperity in a speech full of anti-capitalist rhetoric. 

"I come from a country of bloody beauty," the former leftist guerrilla started his speech in New York. The drug is "less poisonous," but it is persecuted by the world's power, he affirmed. 

"The ruling power has ordered that cocaine is the poison and must be persecuted, even if it only causes minimal deaths by overdose (...) but, on the other hand, coal and oil must be protected, even if their use could extinguish all humanity", said the Colombian president.

🔴 #EnDirecto | Intervención del Presidente Gustavo Petro ante la 77° Asamblea General de la ONU https://t.co/uDVlF6huis

— Presidencia Colombia 🇨🇴 (@infopresidencia) September 20, 2022

Petro affirmed that "these are the things of injustice, the things of irrationality because world power has become irrational."

The Colombian president also described as "hypocritical" the discourse of developed countries to save the rainforest and pointed out: "it burns while you make war and play with it."

"Hypocrites pursue plants with poisons to hide the disasters of their own society, they ask us for more and more coal, more and more oil, to calm the other addiction: that of consumption, of power, of money."

"To destroy the coca plant they throw poisons, massive glyphosate that runs through the waters, they arrest the growers and imprison them. For destroying or possessing the coca leaf, one million Latin Americans are killed and two million Afro-Americans are imprisoned in North America," he added.

Petro also mentioned the current war situation at the international level. 

"When actions were most needed, when speeches were no longer useful when it was indispensable to deposit money in funds to save humanity when it was necessary to move away as soon as possible from coal and oil, they invented one war and another and another. They invaded Ukraine, but also Iraq and Libya, and Syria. They invaded in the name of oil and gas." 

He also stated that the war on drugs has lasted 40 years and warned that if the course is not corrected in time, "it will last longer": "The United States will see 2,800,000 young people die from overdoses of fentanyl, which is not produced in our Latin America."

"It will see millions of African Americans imprisoned in its private prisons. The imprisoned Afro will become the business of prison companies, a million more Latin Americans will die murdered," he added. 

In his defense of the Amazon rainforest, he proposed the use of resources from the international community, in a kind of barter of "debt for life, for nature."

While Petro's speech generated the support of his acolytes, Colombian journalist Santiago Angel described Petro's speech as "deeply ideological," being "clearly anti-capitalist and collectivist." 

"President Gustavo Petro's speech was very good. But it is clearly anti-capitalist and collectivist. And in that line, he greatly oversimplifies the problems of the world to gather them all in the capital. Beyond drugs, a deeply ideological speech."

El discurso del presidente Gustavo Petro fue muy bueno. Pero es claramente anti capitalista y colectivista. Y en esa línea sobre simplifica enormemente los problemas del mundo para reunirlos todos en el capital. Más allá de las drogas, un discurso profundamente ideológico.

— Santiago Ángel (@santiagoangelp) September 20, 2022

For his part, Colombian former Ministry of Finance, Juan Carlos Echeverry called the speech "an "orgy of irrationality" and added that Petro's rhetoric "advocates to stop fighting against [trafficking] enslavement and to leave those 140,000 families of poor peasants at the mercy of drug traffickers. That their sons and daughters continue to be kidnapped to carry a rifle and other terrible things."

But, among his supporters, his speech was glorified. Lalis, a Colombian content creator very close to the Colombian president even wrote on social media: "It was wonderful from beginning to end. It is him representing a people who respect and defend life. I have never felt so proud of the vote I gave him, I love you, Mr. President."