Reuters
Colombia's President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday launched a new national drug policy that will look to reduce the size of coca crops, cut potential cocaine output and prevent deforestation linked to drug trafficking, while helping transition small farmers to the legal economy. Colombia, facing pressure from the United States to fight cocaine production, has historically under conservative governments relied on tactics like the forced eradication of coca - the drug's chief ingredient - and prosecution of poor farmers rearing the crop. "We want to make the first concerted effort to swap one economy with another, with the whole community," Petro, a leftist, said during an event in El Tambo, a municipality in Cauca province, and one of the regions most affected by coca crops.