Colombia’s Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez has asked the Constitutional Court to support a ban on the possession and consumption of low quantities of drugs, El Espectador reported Wednesday.
Speaking in relation to Legislative Act No.2, 2009, which altered the constitution to prohibit “the carrying and consumption of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances … unless prescribed,” Ordoñez requested that the Court deem the change constitutional and not in violation of the right to personal autonomy.
The inspector general said that the cost of legalization is too high, noting the economic and social costs incurred by drug use each year on the police, judicial and health systems. Therefore, he argued, social condemnation and eradication of drugs is the only route to ensure these costs are eliminated.
Colombia banned the carrying of small, “personal” doses of drugs in 2009 after a years-long campaign by former President Alvaro Uribe, who claimed that allowing the consumption of illicit drugs was hampering efforts to combat drug trafficking.
Ordoñez’s request goes against President Juan Manuel Santos‘ declaration last month that his government would consider supporting the legalization of drugs if it were to prove beneficial to the reduction of crime inside the country.