this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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Global News

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Colombian president says cocaine 'no worse than whisky' (www.rfi.fr)
submitted 10 hours ago by xiao@sh.itjust.works to c/globalnews@lemmy.zip
66 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

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[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

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.