The Fiscalía's New Museum

Inside Bogotá's newest museum - the Fiscalia's.

Add to Bogotá's memorable museums its newest one: The Fiscalía's.

Carlos Lehder.

Yep, seriously. The Fiscalia, or Attorney General, the agency charged with accusing and prosecuting criminals, has played a key role in the biggest dramas in Colombia's recent decades, many of which are on display in the new museum. Most impressively, the museum also includes the government's own sins.

The museum is also unintentionally a testament to the violence, corruption and general mayhem which drug prohibitionism has inflicted on Colombia. Not surprisingly, one subject the museum does not touch is decriminalization - despite its demonstrated success - because it would take away the Fiscalia's business.

Everybody's heard of Pablo Escobar, but many fewer know the name Carlos Lehder - even tho he was crazier and perhaps even richer than Escobar. Lehder admired both John Lennon and Adolf Hitler. He tried starting his own populist political party. And he even bought a Caribbean island, kicked off the inhabitants and used it to party and stockpile cocaine. But he was so unstable that Escobar supposedly betrayed him to the DEA. Lehder is still rotting away in a U.S. federal prison.

Model of an early drug-smuggling sub.

Supposedly, Escobar bought a used Soviet submarine to smuggle cocaine north, but never actually used it. Today, drug cartels build home-made diesel submarines and even aquatic drones, load them with cocaine and send the drug north.

Martyred Justice Minister
Rodrigo Lara Bonillo.

Another less-remembered character of the era was the crusading Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonillo, who prosecuted members of the Medellin cartel and was gunned down for it in Bogotá in 1984. His killing triggered the war between the government and Esocbar.

In the end, the leaders of the less-famous Cali cartel were captured and extradited to U.S. prisons, where some still remain. In contrast, many Medellin cartel leaders gave themselves up and received short sentences in Colombia - despite being much more murderous.

A jet ski which supposedly
belonged to Pablo Escobar.

Both the Medellin and Cali cartels were destroyed during the 1990s, and the paramilitaries and most guerrillas have also since disbanded. Yet, today Colombia probably exports record amounts of cocaine.

Bloque de Busqueda members looking at Esocbar's corpse
on a Medellin rooftop in 1993.

However, foreigners, particularly those recently arrived in Colombia, may not recognize other episodes - such as the Proceso 8000.

In the Proceso 8000, Liberal Party Pres. Ernesto Samper's (1994-98) presidential campaign was discovered to have received money from the Cali cocaine cartel.

The investigation brought the conviction of other government officials, but Samper himself was found 'neither guilty nor innocent' by a Congress - altho today few doubt he knew about the dirty money. It led to Washington canceling Samper's U.S. Visa - a huge embarrasment for a close ally - and the U.S. The episode was named after a folder containing key documents - altho I did not see that folder in the museum.

Cali cartel leaders on their
way to prison in the U.S.

One might trace Colombia's rejection of its traditional political parties and the eventual election of Pres. Uribe partially to the Proceso 8000 scandal. After Samper, came Pastrana's failed negotiation with the FARC, and then Uribe's U.S.-backed military offensive against the FARC, which many believe forced them to the bargaining table - albeit at a huge cost in human rights. The hard-right Uribe did not come from either of the two traditional political parties.

Display about the FARC guerrillas.

After the end of the Cali and Medellin cartels, the violence and narcotrafficking didn't let up. Colombia still had to deal with the socialist FARC and ELN guerrillas, which were born in the 1960s, and their right-wing paramilitary enemies.

A captured FARC document listing weapons,
including gun cartridges and explosives.

The government didn't defeat any of these groups. The paramilitaries demobilized during the mid-2000s, receiving up to 8-year terms, despite horrific crimes. The government also negotiated a controversial demobilization deal with the FARC and is now talking to the ELN.

FARC propaganda.

A laptop belonging to FARC leader 'Mono Jojoy' recovered
after he was killed in a government bombardment in 2010.

Probably the darkest chapter in recent Colombia history was paramilitarism - the right-wing death squads organized by landowners with government and military collaboration, which carried out many massacres, often of campesinos, including women and children, based only on suspicion of sympathy for the guerrillas.

The jeep driven by police investigating crimes in
1989 in Santander Department. 

One of the more notorious of the massacres carried out by paramilitaries with collaboration from the regular military was that of La Riochela, in 1989 in Santander Department. Fifteen judicial investigators had traveled to a remote area to investigate killings. Paramilitary fighters stopped them and cold bloodedly murdered twelve of them under orders from a Medellin cartel leader and with support from the regular military. After the killings, the 'paras' hid their weapons in a military base.

Victims of the La Rochela massacre.

Yet another dark chapter involving the regular military were the 'false positives' killings during the

Uribe government. At that time, the military gave military units rewards of bonuses and time off for killing guerrillas. Some units responded by kidnapping poor young men, killing them and disguising them as guerrillas in order to collect the rewards. The killings received national attention when a group of young men were kidnapped from Soacha, in south Bogotá, and later found dead near the Venezuelan border, labeled as guerrillas.

An exhumation kit for buried corpses.

Running thru the museum's displays, of course, is the subject of drug trafficking, which has helped finance nearly all of Colombia's violent groups (and some non-violent ones).

A cocaine.making lab. Lots of chemicals involved. Cocaine is niether green nor organic.

And cocaine can and has been smuggled inside nearly everything.

Coffee beans with cocaine inside.

'Candies' used for smuggling cocaine.

Colombian clock used for smuggling cocaine.

Pool balls, used for smuggling cocaine.

A car tire used for smuggling cocaine.

Unsurprisingly, the museum does not touch the subject of decriminilizing drugs, a policy which has produced lots of benefits when tried in Portugal. That doesn't surprise, because such a policy would reduce the Fiscalia's business.

The Museo de la Fiscalia is located in this building on Carrera 13 just south of Calle 19, in central Bogotá.

You can leave your bike in the parking lot across the street. Admission is free. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Galán Jr. Vs. Galán Sr.

Senator Juan Manuel Galán stands in front of a photograph of is father, Luis Carlos Galán, who was assassinated in 1989 by narcotraffickers.

When presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán was assassinated in 1989 by a conspiracy led by drug cartel Pablo Escobar, Galán became a symbol of the fight against drug traffickers.

But today his son, Senator Juan Manuel Galán, is betraying his father's memory, some say. After

'...it was prohibitionism which assassinated my father...'
Sen. Juan Manuel Galán, in El Tiempo.

all, the elder Galán was murdered by drug traffickers. In contrast, the younger Galán is sponsoring a bill in Congress to regulate medical marijuana, and he advocates the legalization and regulation of all drugs, including cocaine.

But, in an interview in today's El Tiempo, Juan Manuel argues that, in a sense, it wasn't only the narcotraffickers who shot down his father in Soacha in 1989.

"With the passing of years, I've reached the conclusion that it was (drug) prohibition which assassinated my father," Galán said. "It was prohibitionism which fed the narcotrafficking mafias, making them feel strong enough to intimidate and corrupt the state and assassinate anybody who got in their way."

Agree with him or not, the younger Galán's viewpoint - and the very fact that it fits into the mainstream political conversation - shows how the drug control landscape has been transformed from the days when the War on Drugs and 'Just say NO' were the only policy options permitted.

Juan Manuel Galán predicts that eventually all drugs, including cocaine, will be legal and regulated. He may be proved right. But that day's still a long way away, and before it comes many more Colombians will be the victims of drug-related killings.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Imagine That! The FARC and Al Qaeda!

A report that the FARC guerrillas are collaborating with al Qaeda to smuggle their drug shipments

The report was published in Morroco's
al Massae newspaper.

across the Sahel region in north Africa on its way to Europe made headlines today - but should be no surprise.

According to the report, the FARC pay a tax of 15% of the cocaine's value to al Qaeda of the Magreb in return for free passage across the Sahel region of north Africa. The story was published today in Morroco's al Massae newspaper, based on local police reports. Al Massae is not a leader in world journalism, and the Morrocan police are not Scotland Yard. However, it'd be difficult to believe that a FARC-al Qaeda link did not exist.

The huge and barely governed Sahel region in north Africa.

After all, profits seek and find the shortest route, and narcotraffickers' goal is to get their product to market. Does anybody believe that the FARC, who kidnap, massacre civilians, recruit children and plant car bombs would shy away from working with al Qaeda just because the fundamentalist Islamic group kidnaps, massacres civilians, recruits children and plants car bombs?

In the past, the FARC have cooperated with terrorist organizations such as the Irish Republican Army and ETA, the Basque separatist group. Why would they avoid al Qaeda?

The FARC will cooperate with anybody - and I suspect that nearly anybody, including legal International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Center for Public Integrity details how the minerals coltan and tungsten mined and trafficked by the FARC were allegedly sold to legitimate businesses, which used them to manufacture cellphones, computers and other electronics we all use every day.

al Qaeda in the Magreb militants
show off their weapons in the desert. 

corporations, will do business with the FARC, just as long as they expect to profit from it and not suffer bad p.r. or lawsuits. This report by the

Barring effective law enforcement - a rarity in much of Africa and Latin America - illicit goods will flow to where they generate the most profit. For example, I've heard that Colombian cocaine trafficked thru Africa on its way to Europe is traded for blood diamonds, which are then smuggled back to South America.

The European Union's 'security strategy in the Sahel' calls the area "a crisis-shaken region where frontiers blur. Poverty and the fragility of state infrastructures have given free rein to parallel powers, militias, arms-runners and drug dealers."

In a situation like that, there's only one way to stop the FARC, al Qaeda and other outlaw groups from profiting from Colombian cocaine, and that is decriminalizing the drug so that instead legal (if not always law-abiding), tax paying companies buy and sell it.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Legalize is to Pacify

'Legalize is to Pacify' - 'A bad business'

This editorial cartoon by Chócolo from today's El Espectador newspaper really hits the spot for me.

Below the title, 'Legalize is to Pacify,' a camoflauged man in a hammock gripping an automatic rifle shakes his fist at the sky and declares 'It's a bad business.'

The man might be a guerrilla, paramilitary fighter or a plain old narco, all of whom make money off of the illegal drug trade. But, whoever he is, legalizing drugs would certainly hurt his business by shifting the drug industry to legal, tax-paying companies which don't buy automatic rifles.

In fact, a recent study by Mexican academics concluded that legalized marijuana in one or more U.S. states - as Colorado and Washington voted to do last week - would take billions of dollars away from Mexican cartels.

If this cartoon expresses El Espectador's editorial view, it shows that legalization (or decriminalization) of drugs has become the establishment position here in Colombia. The El Tiempo newspaper also backs drug decriminalization. President Santos has also said that drug legalization should be considered, and several ex-presidents support the idea.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Drug Legalization? The FARC Should be Careful What They Wish For

The risks of the illegal drug industry:
An alleged narcotrafficker being escorted
to detention.

During the preliminaries to the FARC-government peace talks, the guerrillas have expressed support for legalizing drugs - a position also favored by some in Colombia's government.

And the idea is a good one for multiple reasons - but probably not for the guerrillas.

The guerrilla argue that legalizing drugs would reduce their profit margins and make trafficking less desireable. That's true - but only partially.

Another price to be paid by the illegal-drugs
industry:co Drug-related killings in Monterrey, Mexico. 

An ounce of Colombian cocaine or heroin - much of which is controlled by the FARC - sold on the streets of New York or London does produce huge profits compared to legal products such as coffee or flowers.

But that huge financial difference is balanced by the great costs which legal products don't carry: The drug cargoes run big risks of being discovered and confisticated; drug traffickers themselves are often arrested and imprisoned by authorities; and drug traffickers know they might be attacked and killed by police or rivals in the drug trade. Drug traffickers, like all good businessmen, figure in those business costs.

FARC guerrillas, who make much of their
income from the illegal drugs trade.
Are they ready to change into business suits?

Legalizing drugs wouldn't cut their demand, just as the demand for alcohol didn't dry up after Prohibition ended in the United States. In fact, with risks and social stigma reduced, demand could very well grow. And, since drug traffickers would no longer carry costs such as violence and confistication, prices would drop. That WOULD slash the huge profits - but, then, traffickers would no longer have to worry about prison or violent death, either.

Of course, the legalized drug industry would have to pay a substantial new cost: taxes. (Which is why decriminalization would benefit the Colombian state: More revenue for the government and less for criminal groups. That sounds like a good deal to me.)

The new style legalized drug industry?
Business suits and tax payments.

Instead of disappearing, a new class of businesspeople would take over the drug trade. The high-risk, live-fast-die-young personality types would be replaced by powerpoint-wielding men and women calculating quarterly profit margins and depreciation rates.

And those don't sound like the FARC guerrillas.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Drug Decriminalization: The Piece Missing from Peace Negotiations?

Today's El Tiempo contains a big section about Colombia's prospects for peace, perspectives about the likely peace negotiations and obstacles to peace.

By almost anybody's measure, reaching a succesful peace treaty between the Colombian government and Marxist guerrillas won't be easy. After all, this conflict has dragged on for more than half a century, and generations have grown up with this conflict, which involves much of Colombia's geography and a complex mix of illegal actors, including leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and narco-cartels dealing in a grab-bag of of commodities, both legal and illegal, including gold, gasoline, cocaine and heroin.

The Colombian government and guerrilla leaders have tried negotiating several times before, but gotten nowhere, and many Colombians blame that on the guerrillas insincerity.

But what if the FARC guerrillas knew that if they don't make a deal, they'd lose their cash cow, the illegal income? Would that inject a big dose of sincerity and urgency into them?

Colombian negotiators could make that threat real by vowing to push for drug decriminalization. Such a move would be controversial both inside Colombia and internationally. But the fear of losing most of their income would undoubtedly add urgency to the guerrillas' position. And, if the talks fail, that will enable Colombia to justify decriminalization to the rest of the world.

Decriminalizing drugs would also bring a second, more fundamental benefit to Colombia. After all, a peace treaty with the guerrillas won't change the fundamentals on the ground: Colombia will still be a big country with lots of remote regions and a weak government presence in many of them. And, while the illegal drug trade continues, a huge amouny of black market wealth will still be out there for the taking - and you can be sure that some illegal group will appear to grab it. Just look at the predicament of Mexico, which has no armed guerrillas, but does have the same conditions of weak government sovereignety and lots of illegal wealth flowing thru.

In fact, it could even happen that, with the FARC gone but poverty and economic inequality continuing, a new guerrilla organization would appear to fill the vacuum.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Bankers' Prison?

Not going to jail for pocketing billions. 

That strange concept occurred to me after reading about the scandal at the HSBC bank, which laundered many millions in money from drug sales, as well as outlawed organizations and nations. HSBC, too, is apparently only an example of widespread practices in the banking industry.

So I Googled combinations of 'banking executives' and 'money laundering' and 'prison' - and came up quite empty. I did find one case - from 1994. I'm sure there have been others since, but they seem to be very few.

In contrast, of course, innumerable poor people have gone to prison for cultivating a patch of coca or marijuana plants, or smuggling a few ounces of a prohibited psychoactive substance.

The inequity is huge and obvious, but the solution difficult as long as wealthy bankers can hide behind teams of lawyers and corporate shields.

One solution would make everything more equal, however: Decriminalize drugs, and make their profits just as licit as those from whiskey, tobacco and orange juice.

Then, banks would have one less thing to worry about, governments would have lots more taxes, and lots of poor people would get out of jail.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Minimum Drug Dosage Returns - But Hold Your Fire.

Colombia's high court has ruled that possessing the famous 'minimum dosage' of drugs is a right of personal development for Colombians. This had been true for many years, until conservative ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe persuaded the legislature to ban the dosage, with the justification that drug sellers were hiding behind the law by carrying only the legal amount on their person. Uribe's Law of Citizen Security imposed prison sentences of 64 to 108 months for possessing up to 1,000 grams of marijuana or 100 grams of cocaine. The court decision depenalizes possession of one gram of cocaine and 20 grams of marijuana.

Even now, buying and selling drugs is still illegal, creating a fundamental contradiction.

And there's also a huge breach between the legal ruling and what happens when a cop stops someone on the street.

One friend says that the cops can confisticate the drugs, but no longer arrest you. Or that they can make you eat the drugs. I understood that the ruling was to replace punishment with rehabilitation for drug users. I suspect that the cops can still do a lot of things, especially if you look like you can't afford a lawyer.

I am also confused by most of the media coverage of the minimum dosage debate, which has focused on the idea that addicts require treatment, not punishment. That's true enough, but ignores the fact that most cocaine and marijuana users, just like most drinkers of alcohol, are recreational consumers who want not treatment, but just to be left alone.

Attorney General Eduardo Montealegre told El Tiempo that he supported the court ruling: "This decision protects the right to equality and autonomy and the free development of a person's personality," he said. "The state doesn't have the right to tell a citizen how he should orient his life. There are areas where personal autonomy takes precedence over the majority opinion."

High police officials and even Pres. Santos have backed decriminalizing and regulating some drugs.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Drug Decriminalization on Cartagena's Agenda!

Seized marijuana being burned by Mexican authorities. Will prohibitionist laws go up in smoke too one day?

The upcoming Summit of the Americas in Cartagena might just turn into a debate over the region's decades of drug prohibition policy and whether there's a better way to combat this scourge.

El Tiempo newspaper, which has long advocated decriminalizing drugs as a way to reduce their damage, celebrates with a headline today that a U.S. official agreed to discuss decrminalization at the summit - but made plain that Washington's idea of 'discussion' is to repeat that it opposes any changes. 

This stuff didn't get burned. Pot being sold in a California
'medical marijuana' dispensary.
(Photo: http://www.theweedblog.com/)

But just putting drug policy up for discussion at an important international conference marks an important break in what's been up to now a Washington-dictated monothink on the subject - even if the face of violent and overwhelming evidence of prohibitionism's harm.

If Washington has anything to say about it - and it will thru its massive influence thru trade, aid and military financing - then no policy changes will come out of Cartagena. After all, this is an election year in the U.S., and prohibitionist policy's greatest coup was getting the 'War on Drugs' label. No U.S. politician wants to admit defeat in a 'war' - even one that's been so patently disastrous.  If only, instead of the war terminology, Richard Nixon had called on Americans to rally behind a 'Chemical dependency management strategy', changing course today would be lots easier.

At least 22 U.S. states have either decriminalized
pot or legalized medical marijuana. 

But the conservative ideological monolith behind prohibitionism is fracturing. Recently, the otherwise-conservative presidents of Colombia and Guatemala have called for a rethinking, as has U.S. evangelical leader Pat Robertson - of all people.

Robertson drinks wine, and he argued that marijuana, which is much less addictive, should be regulated like alcohol. 

For his part, Colombian Pres. Juan Manuel Santos said that "if there is a nation which has suffered the damage of narcotrafficking, it's been Colombia."

The absurdity of the U.S.'s marijuana laws is clear. Marijuana has been de facto legalized in at least 22 U.S. states thru either 'medical marijuana' or marijuana decriminalization laws. Yet, drug warriors continue seizing and destroying pot at the U.S.-Mexican border. The inevitable result: the people producing marijuana and moving it into the U.S. are not tax-paying agro companies, but violent cartels, who have made Mexico and Central America into a battlefield. 

All that over a product which is sold legally in many U.S. cities, and helps people to mellow out.

A California marijuana field.
(Photo: http://www.thedailychronic.net)

Of course, those drug cartels also traffic cocaine, methanphetamines and other damaging, mind-altering substances. The cost-benefit of legalizing those drugs is different, but I believe that decriminalization is worth trying there, too, if only to take the profits away from the cartels and because the drugs are getting thru, anyway. 

Don't expect any breakthroughs in Cartagena, especially in a U.S. election year, when any hint of flexibility by the Obama administration would have the Republicans accusing Pres. Obama of wanting to turn American kids into junkies.

'Try it' 'Never!' A cartoon in El Tiempo newspaper
ridicules Uncle Sam's refusal to consider drug
decriminalization by associating it with the
U.S.'s refusal to deal with Cuba. 

But just the discussion of decriminalization by respected leaders at an important international forum will put decriminalization on the radar screen, and one day soon, hopefully, a Latin nation will dare to try it.

Addendum: Cuba evidently will not attend the summit because it is not a democracy. And if Venezuela's bombastic Pres. Hugo Chavez does attend, he'll likely be feeling weak because of his battle with cancer.

With one of the U.S.'s loudest critics absent and another quieted, that'll make it tougher to dismiss criticism of the drug war as simply more than gringo-bashing.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Bill Clinton in Colombia: Time to Inhale!

Bill Clinton in Barranquilla, Colombia.
(Photo: El Heraldo)

Ex-U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Bogotá yesterday, dining with Pres. Santos, playing golf and making charitable appearances.

Clinton must certainly have also reflected on the results of his relationship to Colombia: the multi-billion dollar, mostly-military Plan Colombia, which he launched together with Colombian Pres. Andres Pastrana. The effort has been mostly successful here, stabilizing the country, reducing violence and sharply cutting the acreage under coca leaf cultivation. (Of course, there has been a big associated cost in human rights violations, including the falsos positivos scandal and the continuing tragedy of displaced people.)

From a global perspective, however, Plan Colombia's results look much more questionable. Billions of dollars and many lives later, coca leaf production here has declined in Colombia but increased in Peru and Bolivia. And, the decline in violence here has been offset by a surge in violence in Mexico and Central America.

As the president who admitted smoking pot - even tho he "didn't inhale" - Clinton would be in an interesting position to advocate drug decriminaliztion (a position which I'd be willing to be that he supports in private). In fact, U.S. Pres. Obama also tried pot in his youth (and even inhaled), and Pres. George W. Bush must certainly have experimented with pot and harder drugs during his wild days.

Guatemala Pres. Otto Pérez.

But of the three U.S. presidents, only Bush had a problem with an addictive substance - and that was a legal one - alcohol. (He eventually went on the wagon.)

From that, we might conclude either that alcohol should be prohibited like the others, or that all drugs should be decriminalized.

But few people doubt that alcohol prohibition was anything but a disaster. So, I'd opt for the decriminalization strategy.

Guatemalan Pres. Otto Pérez, whose nation has been wracked by drug-fueled violence, recently advocated drug decriminalization and plans to propose that policy at a meeting of Central American nations.

"With all the technology and resources and millions of dollars given by the United States the problem hasn't decreased," Pérez, an ex-military man, said recently. "People spoke of the success of Plan Colombia, but the big drug cartels just neutralized it."

Hopefully Clinton will pause to inhale deeply and think about this.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Pablo Escobar: Tourist Attraction

Fernando Botero painting of Pablo Escobar shot down on a Medellin rooftop. Today, Escobar tours take visitors to the site. 

The DAS building in Bogotá,
car bombed by Escobar in 1989.

There's a tremendous irony in the fact that legendary cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar's story has become a tourist attraction: after all, the tremendous violence the man unleashed made Colombia a no-go territory for tourists during Escobar's reign, and the cocaine trade continues sullying Colombia's international reputation, even tho the country's since become much more stable and secure.

Tourists visit Escobar's tomb, the site where he was shot dead on a Medellin rooftop and even meet his brother Roberto, who participated in the drug cartel, went to prison and now defend's his brother Pablo's legacy. Colombian authorities reportedly don't like the Escobar tourism, fearing that it will damage the country's image.

But Escobar is perhaps the most famous (or infamous) Colombian, making him a legitimate object of interest. But he should be portrayed as the terror he was, not the Robin Hood he pretended to be. Escobar did play Santa for children at Christmas, build neighborhoods for the poor of Medellin and provide jobs - but all of that was paid for by the sales of massive amounts of cocaine which ruined the lives of mostly poor people in the cities of the United States and Europe. And Escobar protected his drug empire with assassinations, car bombings and general terror here in Colombia. 

Entrance to Hacienda Napoles,
Escobar's playland outside of Medelli.

People from Medellin have described to me the fear they lived in during the Escobar era, when any car could contain a bomb and one could get caught in cartel crossfire on any street.

Escobar as a tourist himself,
in front of the White House
in Washington D.C.

Here in Bogotá, too, Escobar left a trail of mayhem and death. He helped finance the M-19's 1985 attack on the Justice Palace, which ended with about 100 people dead, the 1989 bombing of the DAS police headquarters, which killed about 70 people and the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan the same year. In 1989 Escobar also bombed a plane, killing all 110 people on board.

Botero painting of a car bomb exploding. 

Some people idolize Escobar because he defied the authorities - but Escobar was no hero. Rather, he lived in luxury, partying with actresses, while others died and went to prison doing his dirty work. 

 But, like the drug trade itself, Escobar tourism is inevitable. As long as the fascination with him exists, as it always will, someone will fill the demand. And, like the drug trade itself, Escobar tourism should be legal, tax-paying and perhaps regulated. 

While others suffered: Escobar
with one of his many women. 

Colombia is a free country, and those who describe Escobar as a hero have a right to - but open discussion should make the ugly truth about him win out.

Related posts:

Guillermo Cano, Journalistic Martyr

Pablo Escobar, Still Making News

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

What if Colombia did 'Legalize'?

Could Colombia do it?

In recent days, Colombian leaders led by Pres. Santos have said that prohibitionism and the War on Drugs should be reassessed in the face of the great suffering in Colombia and other drug producing and transit nations.

Pres. Santos has questioned drug prohibition.

So, what would happen if Colombia actually did decriminalize the use and trafficking of marijuana, and, more importantly, cocaine? Of course, this isn't about to happen (altho the personal dose might come back). Pres. Santos, in telling The Guardian newspaper last week that the War on Drugs should be reconsidered, also said that he wouldn't take the lead, because 'I'd get crucified.'

Less of this? Drug-fueled death in Mexico. 

He's right. But his comments nevertheless marked a milestone in drug policy: It's apparently the first time that the sitting president of an important nation in the Drug War has openly questioned prohibitionist policy.

So, what if what won't happen soon, actually did happen - tomorrow?

Tax revenue:
there'd be more of it.

Suddenly, about three percent of Colombia's economy would shift from contraband to legality. But the nation wouldn't likely simply legalize those activities, since the folks in the business are leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug cartels who have committed countless crimes and human rights violations - not to mention trying to overthrow the government.

Instead, Colombia would drop its prohibitions on marijuana and cocaine, while not totally legalizing them, and wait for legitimate, tax-paying businesses to start producing them.

What to do about all those convicts?

First, Colombia would have to make lots of domestic policy decisions, such as what to do about all the people already in prison for doing something which  was no longer a crime. I'd suggest releasing the small-time drug mules and coca-growing peasants, and evaluating big-time traffickers based on what other crimes they'd committed.

The big winners here: non-violent criminals and the Colombian state, which would save billions and billions of pesos it had been spending on arresting and locking up drug traffickers.

Meanwhile, however, conservative politicians world-wide would be railing against Colombia, calling it a 'narco-state'  - ignoring the fact that many countries have long had huge and legal tobacco and alcohol industries - and accusing it of 'surrendering to terrorists and criminals' - even tho this policy would actually take the business away from those terrorists and criminals.

Still, Colombia would face big-time troubles as wealthy nations, led by the United States, stopped trading with it. That would devastate the other 95% of Colombia's economy which isn't drugs. And it would likely scare the other two cocaine-exporting nations, Peru and Bolivia, from following Colombia's lead.

Suddenly legal? Photo: Reuters.

And Colombia would still face the problem of exporting its drugs, which would still be illegal outside its borders. But I suspect that some other nations with rational governments and terrible problems with drug-fueled violence, would see the light. Quietly, they'd invent a new commercial category called something like 'non-traditional medicines.' (Cocaine's first uses were medical, and it is an excellent local anasthetic - except for its addictiveness.)

Suddenly, lots of weak, poor and corrupt states in Central America and West Africa, would have new tax revenue which previously had disappeared into the pockets of corrupt officials.

Meanwhile, with most obstacles to the drug trade gone, cocaine and marijuana would inundate rich nations. Perhaps a few consuming nations would get sensible and decriminalize at home. But in most countries, reactionary politicians would vow no retreat and carry on the drug war at all costs - at least for a while.

Losers from legalization: Family coca-leaf farmers.... (photo: Awesom Feature)

...and outlaw guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug cartels, who'd lose their monopoly on illegal drugs. (Photo: The Independent)

Back in Colombia, outlaw groups have had monopolies on selling outlawed drugs. They'd be big losers from legalization - and nobody should feel sorry for them - as would be the coca leaf-growing peasants, who never earned much from the business. No longer clandestine, coca leaf would now be grown on plantations run by agrobusinesses, like corn and coffee.

A deforested patch in the Amazon. 

A big winner - along with the tax man and law enforcement - would be the environment, as authorities could regulate where coca leaf was planted and how the chemicals used to make cocaine were disposed of. A major destroyer of the Amazon jungle would end.

Yes, some drug consumers could lose too, if lower prices caused more access and addiction. But those governments which decriminalized and taxed drugs could use their new tax revenues and law enforcement savings to combat drug abuse problems.

All in all, I suspect that drug decriminalization would bring more good than bad.

But don't expect it anytime soon.

Coca of Colombia. (From Graffiti T-shirt shop in La Candelaria.)

Enjoy Cocaine (From Graffiti T-shirt shop in La Candelaria.) 

Legalize Now!!!! Graffiti on a La Candelaria wall. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours