Colombia: A Presidential Win for Leftist Ex-Guerrilla Could Trigger Global Drug Boom

Colombia’s potential next president, leftist ex-guerrilla member Gustavo Petro, has stated that he considers sugar a more dangerous substance than cocaine and proposed policy changes in Colombia’s longstanding war against drugs that could result in a global drug trafficking boom.

Petro, a former M19 Marxist guerrilla member, emerged victorious in the first round of Colombia’s 2022 presidential election last month. He will face off against outsider businessman Rodolfo Hernández in a runoff election for the Colombian presidency on June 19. While polls projected Petro to comfortably win the first round, the latest polls show Hernández as the favorite to win the race, with 52 percent vote intention against Petro’s 44 percent.

Throughout his political career, Petro has downplayed the harm cocaine is capable of to individuals and communities describing sugar as “a much more harmful drug than marijuana and cocaine” and equating fossil fuels to the stimulant drug.

Petro has threatened to heavily regulate the sugar industry, dealing to it potentially devastating blows. In contrast, if elected, Petro intends to reshuffle Colombia’s war on drugs towards an “environmentally friendly” framework that would see the end of a campaign to use herbicide sprays to kill coca crops. Petro has dismissed the use of glyphosate herbicide to fight cocaine trafficking an “imposition” made by the government of the United States. Fumigation of Coca fields with glyphosate was a tactic that counted with the support of the United States as part of the “Plan Colombia” strategy between both countries.

Instead of directly attacking the coca leaf crops, Petro claims he will seek to substitute Colombia’s illegal cocaine economy with a “legitimate” cannabis economy. In an interview given to AFP in February, Petro stated that he would pursue “a peaceful dismantling of drug trafficking” by granting lighter penalties to those that would steer away from cocaine production. In a campaign statement that same month, Petro said he would offer judicial benefits to drug dealers if they do not repeat the illicit activities.

Petro’s soft-on-drugs approach does not end with the farmers. Petro has also expressed his disapproval of extraditions of drug traffickers to the United States by saying that if he becomes president he would not extradite anyone to the United States “until they confess to their victims and redress them” — leaving a loophole open for drug dealers to simply refuse to confess.

Petro recently objected to such an extradition to America: that of Dairo Antonio Usuga, alias “Otoniel” — deemed the most wanted drug trafficker at the time of his capture in 2021 — was not well received by Petro, who said that “victims in Colombia deserve to know the truth” about the extraditee’s crimes and that extradition processes “must prioritize the confessions that the victims need.”

In a different tweet on May 5, Petro referred to the extradition of alias “Otoniel” by saying, “What we see here is how sections of the State act so that the truth is not known, that is, so that there is no justice in our country.”

Colombia is considered to be the largest cocaine producer in the world. The 2017 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report of the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs stated that 90 percent of the cocaine seized in the United States in 2015 was determined to be of Colombian origin.

The United States supported Colombia’s fumigation programs against coca crops until President Juan Manuel Santos, who was elected as a conservative but left office with a historic concession to narcoterrorists as his paramount achievement, suspended them in 2015. Santos acted following a report by the World Health Organization that concluded glyphosate, the main active ingredient in the herbicide used, is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Santos did not replace glyphosate fumigation with any other policy — instead, it opted to negotiate with the Marxist terrorist group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which greatly profited from cocaine trade and controlled 70 percent of Colombia’s coca crops until signing a peace deal with Santos in 2016.

As part of the peace deal, the FARC rebranded themselves as the Marxist “Revolutionary Alternative Common Force” political party and were awarded ten uncontested seats in Colombia’s senate throughout 2026. FARC’s political party has been highly unpopular in Colombia, barely obtaining 0.5 percent of votes in the 2018 legislative elections.

In an attempt to launder its image, the FARC party rebranded itself yet again as the “Comunes” party in 2021, but the new name and branding did not help increase their popularity in the March 2022 legislative elections. The Comunes party only received 31,116 votes (0.19 percent) for the Senate, and only 21,182 (0.12 percent) for Congress.

The peace deal with the FARC immediately preceded the largest Colombian cocaine boom in history, documented in 2017. According to data published by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), there were approximately 245,000 hectares of land activity dedicated to coca leaf cultivation in 2020 — potentially producing up to 1,010 metric tons of cocaine per year.

Colombian authorities continue to fight against the growing cocaine trade. On May 9, Colombian police destroyed a cocaine “mega laboratory” ran by a “dissident” FARC group — the government refers to FARC terrorists who continue to engage in FARC activity as “terrorists” to distinguish from those now in Congress — in the Valparaiso municipality, seizing more than 1.5 tons of cocaine. On May 24, Colombian authorities managed to destroy another cocaine laboratory in the Santander north, seizing 3 tons of cocaine. The lab was stated to be run by members of the Marxist National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissident FARC groups.

Colombia’s incumbent president, Iván Duque, sought to restart glyphosate fumigation but saw his efforts stopped by Colombia’s Supreme Court, which ruled against restarting the program, citing a lack of proper public consultation to the communities of the areas that would be targeted by it.

The 2016 FARC deal was implemented after the Colombian people voted against it in a national referendum. It remains in vigor today.