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
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.
When its german big pharma its ok, when its made by south americans its not ok.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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…
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.
South Park predicted it yet again
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.
Not so sure such a highly addictive substance would be so innocuous. It’s several times more addictive than alcohol
No it’s not wtf.
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
You people really like your cocaine. Wtf indeed.
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.
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
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…
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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.
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
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