Eighteen years after declaring himself a marijuana aficionado and being photographed smoking a joint in a Dutch newspaper, Bogota mayoral candidate Francisco Santos is seeking a ban on pot.
Santos, who is running as the Democratic Center Party candidate, said that if elected as the mayor of Colombia’s capital, his first move would be “to promote a referendum that seeks the full penalization of marijuana smoking.” He told El Tiempo that “drugs are killing this city.”
According to Colombia Reports, this is quite the turn for Santos, who admitted to enjoying marijuana while getting high during an interview with the Dutch weekly Vrij Nederland in 1997. The publication reported that Santos was celebrating his release from captivity (after being kidnapped by Pablo Escobar) with “a lot of doobies.”
But now he’s running for mayor on a conservative ticket with the support of a party that has zero tolerance for drug use.
Despite Colombia’s recent decriminalization of marijuana, Santos wants the city’s residents to support a referendum that would ban carrying small amounts of pot.
“I will organize a consult or a referendum to ask them if they want to ban the drug doses for personal use,” Santos said. “And I will do a campaign so that the people say yes.