by Travis Mannon
Colombia‘s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that carrying small doses of drugs is not a punishable offense, torpedoing years of effort by the administration of former President Alvaro Uribe to criminalize the personal possession and consumption of drugs.
According to the court, penalizing the personal use of drugs violates the “free development of personality.”
The court found that Legislative Act No.2, 2009, which banned the personal use of drugs, “implies the nullification of fundamental rights, and it represses and sanctions with the severest punishments (imprisonment) the personal decision to abandon one’s personal health, a choice that corresponds to their own decision and does not infringe on the rights of other members of society.”
According to newspaper El Tiempo, the Supreme Court set the “personal amount” of drugs at 20 grams of marijuana and one gram of cocaine.
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