(Raw Story) Cesar Gaviria Trujillo, the former president of Colombia, told a Spanish-language radio station this week that America’s war on drugs has been a disastrous “failure” that the ruling political parties simply refuse to talk about.

“Society does not want to accept that people consume [drugs],” he told RCN Radio in Colombia. “You cannot turn away from reality. We cannot accept that theory. [American politicians] may prefer not to talk about it. We cannot accept it.. We cannot be condemned to live in war because Americans do not want to talk about it. No one speaks in favor of the war on drugs.”

Otto Perez Molina, president of Guatemala, said that he too favors legalization to deal with drug-related violence largely driven by the economic impacts of America’s prohibition policies, which drive up the price of illegal substances and help enrich criminal gangs.

Oh, we accept that people consume drugs all right.  We celebrate drug consumption with ads telling us to “Grab Some Buds” and “Live the High Life”.  We get commercials of horny people in bathtubs watching sunsets to sell drugs that we know men consume (and even abused) for recreational, not medical purposes.  We get cartoon depression that requires a drug and then another drug to help the drug.  And as long as the drug comes in liquid form and helps you stay alert and productive – a good little worker bee – we’ll let the dealers jack up the price tenfold and sell it on every street corner and sell concentrates of it in convenience stores.

Could Colombia be making a play to return to its days of glory, back in the late 1970s, when it was likely the number one supplier of marijuana in the world? One could easily assume as much based upon the multi-ton busts happening there recently.

Colombian police seized almost 10,000 pounds — nearly five tons — of marijuana over the span of three drays in Medellin and Pereira, authorities said on Monday, reports Sara Gates at The Huffington Post.

According to Colombia Reports, in the main bust, Medellin police arrested four men who tried to smuggle 5,000 pounds of weed in a truck carrying oranges. The payload, consisting of “more than 101 bales of marijuana,” weighed about 5,597 pounds.

Authorities said the pot was meant for the domestic Colombian market, and said the total value of the bales was $1.69 million U.S. dollars. (That works out to just over $16,732 per 55-pound bale, or just over $300 a pound.)

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos said this week that legalization of marijuana would allow the war on drugs to move forward by shifting focus to harder drugs and helping to stop the international violence associated with drug trafficking.

Santos said more world leaders should rethink their approach to the War On Drugs in order to deal with drug trafficking and the use of hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine, reports Natalie Dalton of Colombia Reports. The Colombian president made the remarks in an interview with Metro News.

“The world needs to discuss new approaches … we are basically still thinking within the same framework as we have done for the last 40 years,” the president said.

​Legalizing marijuana could be a way forward, “provided everyone does it at the same time,” Santos said.

The president said he cannot be the first to make the move, “because for Colombia, this is a matter of national security,” and drew a contrast, saying “in other countries this is mainly a health and crime issue.”