Latin American politicians are fed up with the war on drugs

Thirty years ago Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela and his associates were the world’s most powerful criminals, reckoned to control 75% of cocaine shipments from Colombia. They adopted a businesslike approach to a lawless trade, often preferring bribery to violence, and used their profits from drugs to buy legal enterprises, from pharmacy chains to América de Cali, a football club in their home city. When he died on May 31st after 18 years in an American prison, Mr Rodríguez was barely remembered in his home country. Yet the business which he pioneered is stronger than ever, while across the Americas there is palpable fatigue with the “war” against it.

That fatigue is expressed by both the candidates in Colombia’s presidential run-off on June 19th. Rodolfo Hernández, a populist of the right, has called for the legalisation of drugs. His leftist rival, Gustavo Petro, says his country should recognise that the war is lost. Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, favours “hugs rather than bullets” for the drug trade’s foot soldiers; arrests of drug kingpins fell until recently. Officials in the United States seem more preoccupied with the arrival of migrants than of cocaine. Drug-related deaths there continue to rise, but over 60% are caused by fentanyl, a powerful synthetic drug, much of which is made in Mexico.