The president would have « drug addiction »

A former Minister of Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Wednesday that the head of state would suffer from a ‘drug addiction’, a frequently rejected accusation, according to AFP.

Alvaro Leyva, ex-foreign minister and who was in a while one of Gustavo Petro’s closest policies, published an open letter on the X platform, saying that the president had disappeared for several days during a diplomatic trip in Paris in 2023.

« In Paris I was able to confirm that you have a problem with drug addiction, » writes Leyva, 82 years old, addressing the president. These moments were ‘painful for me both as a person and as a foreign minister,’ he adds, without giving more details.

Alvaro Leyva was a peace negotiator for several Colombian governments of all political tendencies and ran for two lines, without success.

At the beginning of 2024, the General Inspection of Colombia ordered its suspension due to the improper management of a tender for printing passports, a decision to which Gustavo Petro was opposed, qualifying as ‘politically motivated’.

Since then, Leyva suggests that President Petro has a problem with drugs, an accusation rejected several times by the head of state.

The president arrived in power in 2022 replied on Wednesday the letter on social networks, indicating that he had something better than to spend his time with the one who was a minister at that time. ‘Paris is not full of parks, museums, libraries, more interesting than the author of this letter to spend two days there? Almost everything in Paris is more interesting. ‘

‘I have no daughters and granddaughters in Paris who are much more interesting than the author of this letter?’ He continues.

Petro’s position in drugs problem sometimes aroused controversy among his right -wing opponents. He frequently minimized the effects of cocaine, stating that the whiskey ‘kills more’ people and did not exclude its legalization.

Under his government, the production of cocaine in Colombia has reached record levels and the eradication of coca plantations have slowed down.

He recently assured that his only addiction is coffee, another emblematic agricultural product of Colombia.