Cocaine “is no worse than whisky” and is only illegal because it comes from Latin America, said Colombian President Gustavo Petro during a live broadcast of a government meeting.
Colombia is the world’s biggest cocaine producer and exporter, mainly to the United States and Europe, and has spent decades fighting against drug trafficking.
During a six-hour ministerial meeting – broadcast live for the first time ever – the leftist president said “cocaine is illegal because it is made in Latin America, not because it is worse than whisky.”
“Scientists have analyzed this. Cocaine is no worse than whisky,” he added, suggesting that the global cocaine industry could be “easily dismantled” if the drug were legalized worldwide.
“If you want peace, you have to dismantle the business (of drug trafficking),” he said. “It could easily be dismantled if they legalize cocaine in the world. It would be sold like wine.”
Petro also pointed out that fentanyl “is killing Americans and it is not made in Colombia”, referring to the opioid responsible for around 75,000 deaths in the United States a year, according to official data.
“Fentanyl was created as a pharmacy drug by North American multinationals” and those who consumed it “became addicted,” he added.
Since coming to power in 2022, Petro has attempted to make peace with all of the armed groups that are fueled by drug trafficking in the hope of ending six decades of conflict.
Cocaine production in Colombia reached a record-high in 2023, jumping 53 percent to 2,600 tons, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
I don’t think any drug should be illegal. I hate cocain. He’s right. Alcohol is fucking terrible
I think people should have the liberty to buy and injest whatever they want.
However, you should not be allowed to sell whatever you want to other people. The power dynamics between companies and consumers is not balanced, and capitalism will always find ways to abuse its costumers for profit. That’s why some countries are trying to regulate ultra processes foods and sugary foods.
So yeah, you should be free to carry fentanyl and use it. But not to give it or sell it to anyone without restrictions. Same with all other drugs.
This is a black and white over-simplified overview of my stance, because you also need nuance. Does it benefit society to require that certain jobs be done by people who are absolutely sober and thus go through regular drug tests? Does it benefit society that some people be sentenced to mandatory rehab? Or does it benefit society more to have freedom to trade and consume drugs? Your freedom to use drugs might interfere with my fredom to leave the house safely.
Id be hard pressed to think cocaine is worse. I honestly trust a coked out driver more than a drunk driver. Fighting I think stays around the same overall drunk/coked out though. Lmaooo
Thats it. No more aspirin for you.
I don’t know if this is true today, but it was definitely true at first. But because of cocaine prohibition, the powder became incrisingly purer and the plant increasingly stronger. Prohibition made cocaine a more dangerous substance to consume.
Legalization and regulation could bring standardization to the cultivation and processing of this plant. But as far as I know that has not happened with weed, so it is unlikely.
When its german big pharma its ok, when its made by south americans its not ok.
LSD stays winning
Psychedelics just chilling at the bottom. I’m not even sure there’s a proper LD50 for these as there are no recorded deaths where overdose was the cause. It’s so funny yet sad that these are super illegal while booze and tobacco are perfectly legal.
And the CIA tried SUPER HARD to find it too
Love Sex Dreams
Just to add a note that this graph comes from a study made on rats. I love the study and i use this graph frequently when discussing drugs, but i think it’s important to know.
Being done on rats also raises the point that it’s done excluding a mental component of using the drug, like for instance how some people use cigarettes in depression for its antidepressant effect or use alcohol to cope with mental health issues.
It also doesn’t explore the mental health effects of repeated exposure to large doses of hallucinogens on people, which we still don’t have research on because of how demonized hallucinogens are in most countries doing research on drugs.
I’ve been doing an exhaustive study for the last couple of decades on the effects of whiskey on a human with mental health issues.
Feedback?
It’s hard to write down scientific conclusions when you black out at the end of the night, but so far I wouldn’t recommend it. I’ll try again tonight and get back to you.
Your commitment to science is commendable
It also doesn’t explore the mental health effects of repeated exposure to large doses of hallucinogens on people, which we still don’t have research on because of how demonized hallucinogens are in most countries doing research on drugs.
Also, I don’t think you’ll get that past an ethics board…
There’s that “therapist” at a mental health facility that would give ULTRA MACRODOSES of LSD to his patients, put them in a completely white room, strip them naked, chain them together, and play sad and horrifying things to them for DAYS in a row, and the only food they got was a nutrient slop they had to suck out of the wall… that didn’t go well.
what about testing the ld50 on humans?
Interesting! Do you have a link to the original study by any chance?
Damn so when I say something like “in my opinion a joint is exactly the same as a cup of coffee” I’m wrong… because coffee is more likely to kill you than a joint
It doesn’t say that. The X axis is basically the inverse of how many times a “usefull dose” you need to take before you die. Or you can see it as “overdose potential”.
It’s basically impossible to overdose on cannabis, but really easy to overdose on heroin. Coffee is kinda weird, it’s at 0.01, meaning you need 100 times the effective dose to die.
That’s basically 100-300 cups of coffee, so if you’re drinking just coffee you’re going to kill yourself from just drinking the water in the coffee way before the caffeine in the coffee gets dangerous.
The joint is probably worse for you than the coffee because the smoke fucks up your lungs. But that’s not a problem with the drug, it’s a problem with the consumption method.
He’s right, we should legalize it. We’ve lost the war on drugs. Fully legalized cocaine would be dirt cheap and addicts with access to a safe, affordable supply could lead relatively normal, stable lives. The money earned in the drug trade would be taxable instead of supporting criminal or extremist groups, both at home and abroad.
While I can admit drugs aren’t “good” per se but I do think most* should be legalized. We should have harm reduction classes that can teach people how to use responsibly. And have clinics where addicts can go to try and get clean and can provide whatever drug they’re addicted to in a safe environment. Also tax revenue.
But that would require empathy and an honest look at how other countries handle drugs much better than the U.S.
South Park predicted it yet again
Not so sure such a highly addictive substance would be so innocuous. It’s several times more addictive than alcohol
I don’t think it’s innocuous, but we’re already failing to prevent the harm it causes and our efforts are causing a great deal more.
No it’s not wtf.
You people really like your cocaine. Wtf indeed.
You’re right, it’s hella addictive. I’m very lucky that my body/brain works the way it does, though… I’ve got access to endless amounts of incredibly pure stuff and I only do it a few times a year.
Alcohol is blamed for about 2,100 overdose deaths a year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cocaine, meanwhile, killed 14,510 people in the last year.
Now, let’s back up a step and look at how many American adults use these drugs. The National Institute of Health says that about 86 percent of adults drink. In comparison, only about half of a percent of adults use cocaine.
That statistic alone tells you that cocaine use is a far riskier activity.
Source: https://www.theraleighhouse.com/addiction-blog/cocaine-versus-alcohol
That statistic is about cocaine related deaths, not necessarily overdoses. Often with cocaine related deaths the user is taking multiple drugs at once, usually opiates, and often alcohol too, but it usually doesn’t get blamed.
This is also more a problem with prohibition then cocaine itself since people don’t know the dose of what there getting or adulterants. If it were legal like alcohol there would be far less deaths. There were far more deaths from alcohol under prohibition when your “whiskey” was full of methanol and industrial alcohol
Also overdose isn’t the only danger from drugs. One that alcohol is miles ahead of every other drug is DUI, which kills about 13,000, meanwhile cocaine, by itself, is rarely implicated in DUI. Alcohol impairs your driving ability way more than cocaine. There’s also chronic health concerns, which are harder to weigh. Alcohol is a carcinogen and chronic use fucks up your liver, meanwhile cocaine will fuck up your heart.
Not really, it’s somewhere between alcohol and nicotine in terms of addictivness. Slightly more than alcohol, slightly less than nicotine.
Ah ok. I wouldn’t know conclusively but the cokeheads I knew were… more intense than the alcoholics.
Probably because it being illegal creates a selection bias. Most people will never use it or have it easily accessible. Most people will have easy access to alcohol and nicotine, and will likely try at least alcohol.
No, I’m referring to the “let’s buy another 8ball for $250 tonight” and then regretting it the next day. Super common. Whereas the drinkers could be okay with not drinking anymore in most cases.
You also have to take into mind that theyre probably taking coke laced with amphetamines without them knowing and not pure cocaine
Probably? There’s a million factors. I don’t know how one would even begin to guess that
Anecdotally, cocaine seems to make its users into the worst versions of themselves. Alcohol can have negative effects (the “mean drunk”, drinking as disinhibition for impulsive antisocial behaviour, etc.) though the average drinker is generally not regarded as negatively as the average cokehead. I wonder how much of this is due to the substances’ intrinsic properties and how much due to cultural expectations.
Cocaine either makes me crazy. Aka I think it was cut with something. Or does absolutely nothing to me. Aka this is the pure stuff. The better the cocaine, according to my friends reviews versus mine, the less I feel any “effects”. So that was the start of internal alarm bells about ADHD 😂(very much so diagnosed and medicated now lol). Just better focus but a bit moreso than my current meds, as a rough guess it’s been over 10 years.
But I never saw them become the worst versions of themeslves.
Unless. They drank at the same time as consuming.
I suspect a large part has to do with a selection bias. The people most likely to turn into a bad cokehead are also the people with the most access to it. Most people will never come into contact with cocaine, but they will come into contact with alcohol and likely consume it. The average person is more likely to become an alcoholic, while only certain segments are likely to even have the potential to become a coke addict and I’d bet on those segments being more likely to be harmful.
Yeah. The stereotype of the cokehead is the asshole trader who works at Goldman Sachs. Rookie numbers and all that…
I sometime drink coca leaves in tea. It makes me a bit more focused but that’s it, I don’t like it that much.
Is cocaine legal in Colombia?
According to wikipedia, you can own up to a gram (1 or 2 doses, but like half a dose if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t need the internet to know that), and you can gift it and make your own. But you can’t sell it…
Jeeeez. A gram of pure stuff is enough to get both my partner and I zooted for like three nights straight.
i don’t know enough about cocaine and want to learn.
setting aside the axe he has to grind and in the specific context of his comments about fentanyl and whisky, how accurate or inaccurate are his statements? what makes them so?
Going off memory, I think cocaine on its own really isn’t THAT bad as far as hard drugs go, but when combined with alcohol it metabolizes into “cocaethylene” which is highly toxic and basically shreds your heart.
And I’ve never met anyone that uses coke WITHOUT booze.
Its hard to analyze it in its own since its use is as an energy fix in party contexts.
Example, its 6am youve been partying all night and are drunk and sleepy but want to keep partying or need to work, so you snort a line and you can keep it up for another day. You eventually get a massive hungover, so in order to get better you snort another line and so on.
Cocaine is one of the most addictive drugs that exist. Alcohol is
barelya lot less addictive.Meanwhile, severe cocaine withdrawal makes you tired and irritable while severe alcohol withdrawal makes you have seizures and die. Most people who use cocaine never develop an addiction, just like most people who drink never develop alcoholism. As far as addiction potential, methamphetamines, opiates, and nicotine are the worst offenders, as is the crack formulation of cocaine, which is not what’s being discussed here
You’re not addicted to cocaine until you’re poor, until then it’s a habit.
If you make cocaine legal, you effectively make crack legal, since the conversion is trivial.
And no, methamphetamine existing does not make cocaine less harmful.
If you make cocaine legal, you reduce overdose deaths significantly. Most OD deaths involving cocaine are due to dosing uncertainty and adulteration with other substances like fentanyl. Legalization would also decrease barriers to treatment and less criminal justice involvement would improve treatment outcomes
That’s certainly true, yet I still disagree with the post’s claim that cocaine is “no worse than whisky”.
This is just wrong lol. “Alcohol is a lot less addictive” while it is the most abused substance in the world
The most abused substance is caffeine.
How often a substance is abused has very little to do with how dangerous or addictive it is.
It’s not abuse if it doesn’t have any negative impact and unless I’m in denial I’m pretty sure my tea drinking isn’t.
Fuck yeah. I want to be able to buy cocaine as easily as I can buy whisky.
The monkey’s paw curls its finger. Alcohol has been criminalised, and is now equally easy to buy as cocaine.
Nah, we did it, it got easier to find.
deleted by creator
Keeping the whiskey out of the microwave is more about taste.
That’s perfectly normal. They have no incentive to lie, do they…?
Ok I’m sold where do I sign up
deleted by creator
