Business: High Profits

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Colombians consider legalizing pot growing

In Colombia, where coffee is king, some businessmen are high on the idea of giving Mary Jane, the outlaw princess, a legitimate spot on the economic throne. A small but influential cadre of Colombians are campaigning to make the growing of marijuana legal in their own country. The movement is headed by Ernesto Samper Pizano, president of the National Association of Financial Institutions (A.N.I.F.), a well-regarded think tank that has completed an eight-month study on the effects of legalization.

Samper, a lawyer and economist, contends that if growing had been legal, Colombia last year could have saved the $120 million it spent on trying to stop it and also collected taxes of $168 million on the huge amount of pot, worth an estimated $1.4 billion wholesale, that was smuggled out of the country. Further, Samper calculates that the estimated 30,000 grower families get only 8% of the earnings of the trade; the rest goes to smugglers and middlemen, most of them North Americans. Legalization, says Samper, would both spread the pot wealth better and rid Colombia of much of the corruption and violence that the illicit trade has spawned.

Other Colombian business leaders feel much the same. Says Eduardo Goéz Gutiérrez, the Bogotá stock exchange president, who is a cautious supporter of legalization: "In my opinion, the financial sector is in favor of it." He argues that the big inflow of foreign money to pay for the stuff "is producing inflation and monetary control problems, which would be much easier to handle if marijuana were legalized."

Though a group of Colombian Congressmen also endorse the idea, most ranking officials remain opposed to the proposal. Colombian President Julio César Turbay Ayala sees "no possibility" of legalization. His feeling is shared by Attorney General Guillermo Gonzalez Charry, who is worried about marijuana's effect on the health of Colombian youth. By A.N.I.F.'S estimate, only 5% of the crop is smoked locally, and Gonzalez wishes to keep it that way. Captain Luis German Leon, head of the secret police narcotics unit, fears that if pot were legalized many people now involved in the marijuana trade "would switch to kidnaping or trafficking in arms."

Since 85% of Colombia's estimated 26,725-ton illegal crop is exported for American use, any plan to legalize the growing of marijuana in Colombia would be politically unwise unless consumption was first legalized in the U.S. This kind of joint venture seems highly unlikely in he near future, so Samper's entire plan may indeed go up in smoke.