It is undeniable that the war on drugs has failed. In his speech at the United Nations, Colombian President Gustavo Petro fell short of offering what the world is still waiting for: a solution to the problem. In 2016, at a special UN assembly, former president Juan Manuel Santos also spoke about the lost war on drugs and emphasized the need to rethink the approach. The interventions of Petro and Santos are the first steps toward a possible solution. The war on drugs began 50 years ago when US president Richard Nixon declared “an all-out offensive” against what he considered to be “enemy number one”: illegal drugs. This war was immediately extended to Colombia. In the 1970s, the South American country exported immense quantities of marijuana through the Caribbean, and criminal organizations later made the transition to cocaine. The war on drugs has sought to reduce the drug supply at all costs, based on the premise that if there were no drugs, there would be no consumers. Yet the production, sale and consumption of drugs have grown disproportionately. The effectiveness of the war on drugs can only be measured through the drug market, which is not slowing down anywhere in the world. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) World Drug Report, around 284 million people between the ages of 15 and 64 consumed drugs in 2020, an increase of 26% from 2010.
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