A decade after the first state legally regulated adult recreational cannabis, the 2022 International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), which monitors the implementation of UN drug control conventions, released a new report focused on the legalization of cannabis. The real question is not whether legalization models can resolve all problems associated with cannabis but rather, is legalization mitigating the harm committed under prohibition. Read more about it in this analysis which was published alongside the Transnational Institute (TNI) and the Global Drug Policy Observatory (GDPO).

In addition this week, despite the change in rhetoric and announced efforts to improve security for social leaders and conflict-affected-communities by the Petro government, at least 20 social leaders have been murdered in Colombia in 2023. Just this week, two women who belonged to Sintraunicol, a trade union of public university workers and employees, were murdered in the entrance to Cali's Universidad del Valle. While there is no quick fix to the ongoing violence, the U.S. and Colombian government should prioritize a joint strategy for monitoring and advancing the implementation of the Ethnic Chapter of the 2016 peace accord. 

This and more in this week's WOLA Weekly.

John Walsh

WOLA's Director for Drug Policy

• 🇨🇴WOLA remains deeply concerned about the on-going violence, insecurity and attacks faced by human rights defenders and entire Indigenous and Afrodescendant communities in Colombia. We urge U.S. policymakers to jointly advance policies that address these situations during the U.S.-Colombia High Level Dialogue taking place later this month.
• 📩 WOLA participated in, alongside USAID and Colombian civil society, this year's Annual Human Rights Consultations, which focused on the implementation of the 2016 Peace Accord’s Ethnic Chapter, rural development, and land reform. Read more about what our partners highlighted as top priorities for the consultations in Colombia.
• 🇵🇪WOLA pushed back as Peru’s government tried to use a recent meeting in Washington D.C. to clean their image and fake our support for their recent violent actions against protestors, which must stop and should be investigated.

• ☘️ To stimulate a discussion, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) could choose to play a more pro-active role by presenting different scenarios for the direction in which the treaty system could develop in light of changing circumstances for cannabis legalization. Meanwhile, states should take the initiative themselves. Read more.

• 🇺🇸 📩 WOLA joined over 380 groups demanding the U.S. government to terminate family detention permanently. Reinstating a policy of detaining families in ICE or CBP custody would be a horrifying reversal of Biden's commitments. 

In April 2022, WOLA launched its one-of-kind Border Oversight Database, which documents hundreds of reports of human rights violations and abuses against migrants and asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

John Walsh

Director for Drug Policy

Colombia and Bolivia, the world's biggest cocaine suppliers just asked the UN to legalize coca leaf. "Coca should not be in the same list as cocaine." WOLA's Director for Drug Policy tells NPR.

Walsh noted that apart from its illicit use to make cocaine, coca has healthy uses. It is closely related to cultural rights and Indigenous rights, "and it's a denial of those rights and cultures to classify it as something that needs to be abolished".

WOLA's Director for Drug Policy John Walsh told NPR.

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