“My father legalized drugs for me”: Pablo Escobar’s son in an exclusive interview

Juan Pablo Escobar, son of the historical Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, assures that without prohibitionist laws his father “would never have existed”, for this reason he defends the legalization of all drugs as the solution to end “war and destruction”.

“Without that prohibitionist recipe, Pablo Escobar would never have existed,” says his son, also known as Sebastián Marroquín -name he adopted after his father’s death-, in an interview with Efe on the occasion of his participation in the third edition of ‘Cannabis Thinking’, in Sao Paulo.

At 44 years old, the scion of the ill-fated head of the Medellín Cartel believes that the greatest propaganda that encourages drug use “is precisely prohibition”, since he understands that when they are legalized, “that adrenaline of breaking the law” is lost.

“The path of regularization is the path of peace and the path of prohibition is the path of war and absolute destruction,” he asserts, although he clarifies that “regularization does not mean going out to tell the world that drugs are fantastic. ”.

In his opinion, the politicians who advocate prohibition “are in favor of the drug traffickers, clearly.”

“I know many drug traffickers and there are none who are in favor of legalization, because it would be the end of their power and their business, they are not idiots,” he says.

In this context, he sees “positive” that more and more countries begin to regularize marijuana for different uses, such as recreational or medicinal, something that “will bring peace, prosperity and health to the Latin American peoples.”

Although, according to him, “it was not only necessary to think about legalizing and regularizing cannabis, but also other substances.”

Also cocaine? “Marijuana, until recently, its dangerousness was compared to heroin, coffee was considered a drug and was prohibited in the past and alcohol is now sold to you in the corridors of airplanes and nobody is scandalized,” he replies.

“I never tried drugs”

Because, in his opinion, the fundamental key to not falling into the need to consume is “early education”, like the one that his father gave him paradoxically.

“Education kept me totally on the sidelines and safe, despite having been the son of the drug trafficker responsible for 80% of the distribution of drugs in the world” and living “surrounded by hitmen, bodyguards and criminals who systematically consumed all kinds of drugs. drugs ”, he relates.

“My father went to the extreme of legalizing drugs for me. He said, ‘If you ever want to try it, call me and we’ll try it.’ That day the curiosity ended, they were no longer prohibited for me, so I did not have the need to consume them ”, he completes.

Juan Pablo Escobar, an architect and industrial designer by profession, guarantees that he used marijuana for the first time at the age of 28 and that he has never tried cocaine, on which his father built his illicit empire.

“I never tried cocaine because my father told me that it was a poison to sell, but not to consume,” he recalled.

Asked if there is a “glamorization” of the drug world, he indicated that this phenomenon “we owe it to Netflix.”

“The message for young people (with that type of series) is that being drug traffickers is the way for them. They see it portrayed as a success story when in reality my father never enjoyed his fortune, his money, or his power, “he warns.

The author of the books “Pablo Escobar. My father: the stories we shouldn’t know ”and“ Pablo Escobar red-handed: what my father never told me ”affirms that the scars that remain from that dark childhood are“ the pain of the victims ”of the violence instigated by his progenitor.

That is why he spends part of his time “getting closer to them”, in a process of “dialogue, reconciliation and peace” in which he tries to heal their pain. Already spoken with 150 families, according to their accounts.

“I wanted to assume, without it being my responsibility, the moral responsibility for the crimes that my father committed because for me forgiveness is the principle of reparation,” he says.

The stigma of the last name ‘Escobar’

Juan Pablo Escobar is currently writing a fictional comic and has “some audiovisual production” in his hands about which he cannot give details. As an architect, he doesn’t have a lot of jobs. He maintains that his last name still brings him “problems” today.

“There are a lot of prejudices in the institutions, there are many people who, ignoring my behavior and my history, think that I am the continuity of Pablo Escobar,” he says.

“They are very wrong and I am sorry to disappoint them, but I am not going to become a more lethal version than that of my father, on the contrary, I am making every effort to leave a different message,” he completed. (I)