Gen. Oscar Naranjo, with over 30 years of experience, proposes that drug use comes under state control
The director of Colombia‘s National Police, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, who leaves office this summer, decided to make a stopover in the war on drugs to explore alternatives, including consumption of marijuana under state control.
“You have to make a stop on the way,” Naranjo asked in an extensive interview with the Colombian daily El Tiempo, which said that he favors a debate to explore “new policies around prevention and repression “of drugs.
Naranjo, who is stepping down this summer after more than three decades of service in the institution, he argued that “talk of decriminalization or legalization or decriminalization of drugs should be the outcome of the debate and not the gateway to the discussion, because this debate needs more solid and consistent.”
He should tell the truth about drugs, because the information available on them “is vague and inconsistent,” he claimed and stressed that in the streets of the world drugs are consumed “at least 480 different substances.” differentiating between them is necessary because there are “soft, like marijuana, very hard, as the acids that kill and cause irreparable addiction, and drugs like cocaine and heroin that are in that middle world, causing extensive damage to the health of addicts, “said Naranjo.
In this regard, he said “it would be extremely irresponsible” for society to remain undaunted against substances that kill the people, but should also consider the other end, which is marijuana, which is less harmful or addictive lethal, as demonstrated by science. Then we “have to raise regularization on marijuana.” The general, conditions for consumption that are set by the state, which must stop criminalizing the making use of it.
In the case of other drugs, “we must pursue them. That absolute prohibition itself, because it is tested (…) that cause lethal damage and harmful, “he said Naranjo, whose task in the fight against drug trafficking and illegal armed groups left great results that have been recognized internationally.
According to him, roads and consumption of marijuana can be controlled to release state forces that henceforth, it will focus on “the persecution of organizations (of traffickers) and not the consumer.”
The police chief said his country welcomes, which has moral authority on the problem, now promotes the discussion without pressure from drug traffickers and continental leadership of President Juan Manuel Santos.
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