Despite writing for High Times since 2007, I’m not much of a Gonzo Journalist in print. I’m more of one IRL.
As I walk through the hallowed halls of the United Nations, I know everyone on campus has an agenda. Mine is cannabis legalization. Naturally, I ask about it in most press briefings, including on Monday, August 1, when Panama’s Ambassador to the U.N., Eloy Alfaro de Alba, held a press conference to kick off his country’s rotating presidency of the Security Council.
Usually, when I bring up cannabis, I get off-the-record comments at receptions. Years ago, after Canada legalized full adult use, I joked with the Canadian ambassador that “since his Mission to the U.N. is considered international territory despite being located in Manhattan, I should be able to consume cannabis there legally.” He broke into a Cheshire Cat grin. His secretaries turned pale.
These days, I need new material. People vape at U.N. headquarters along the riverwalk. Cannabis is legal in New York, and the U.N.’s outdoor spaces sit in a kind of jurisdictional limbo, like maritime waters.
Since weed is my beat, I often ask cannabis questions on the record, in the mustard-colored press briefing room under harsh fluorescent lights that age reporters a decade. Sometimes, I’m skipped. Sometimes, they prepare canned answers in advance. But this time, Ambassador Alfaro surprised me.
I asked if Panama might consider full adult-use legalization, given the country’s National Assembly unanimously approved medical cannabis in 2021.
He didn’t dodge.
“I lived in New York during the period of my fellow hippies,” he said. “I was not a hippie myself, or I didn’t consider myself to be a hippie, but I lived in New York during that time, so consumption…”
He trailed off—plausible deniability worthy of a Bill Clinton “didn’t inhale.”
He then reflected on Panama’s historical relationship with the plant:
“I have suffered with a situation in which Panama has been pointed to and blamed for cannabis, particularly, and for being a country that produced, because otherwise, we’re not a drug-producing country. Our problem is to be geographically located between production and consumption. And therefore, a country that is subject to the transit of particularly cocaine and cannabis, otherwise known in our local jargon as marijuana.”
He acknowledged that Panama once grew “allegedly a very good product.”
“Panama was a producing country, not to a large degree, but we did produce, as a matter of fact, an allegedly very good product. They even had a name for it. I can’t say because I wasn’t a consumer myself. I never learned to smoke anything, even cigarettes. And now that we know the effects of what cigarettes do, I’m glad that I didn’t learn.”
Then he pivoted, gently, diplomatically, to the contradictions he sees walking around New York today:
“After having suffered Panama being persecuted because of, allegedly, first, a drug-producing country in the case of cannabis, and in a country of transit of drugs between the producers… south of us, and the consumption country north of us… I’m unsurprised by the way in which [cannabis] became a multi-billion-dollar business.”
“You can walk into stores, some of them becoming more and more luxurious, in several places in New York, from Broadway,” he continued. “I know that all of you are probably aware. I haven’t dared to walk into any of them, because there’s no need, but it does surprise me the way that it has changed from a situation that was persecuted, to a situation in which it has become an important business.”
As for Panama’s future?
“Whatever Panama does in the future is going to have to be approved by the National Assembly of Panama, so I’m sure that it would be a political debate. Panama is a relatively conservative country. It is a religious country… but anyway, it would have to be a political debate in the country, and eventually in the National Assembly for a decision to be made.”
He concluded cautiously: “I cannot speculate as to exactly what would be happening. I haven’t seen any intention or movement lately that would suggest a law to legalize it.”
Disclosure: This article contains reporting based on an official U.N. press briefing on August 1, 2025.
Photo: Shutterstock
