Still Losing the Drug War

Today's El Tiempo reports the boom in coca leaf cultivation.

It should be great news. Production of this Colombian product has more than tripled in the last several years. But unfortunately, we're talking about an illegal harvest: coca leaf destined for cocaine.

Nobody's sure why coca leaf cultivation has boomed in recent years. Perhaps the FARC encouraged farmers to plant more, with promises that one day they'd be paid to erradicate their own crops? Well, if the Marxist FARC are capable of such a capitalist wonder, then the government should put them in charge of turbocharging other parts of the economy, such as the beleagured textile industry.

The reality. Coca leaf acreage
is booming.

In fact, the only reasonable explanation is that more demand generates more supply. Evidently, traffickers are succeeding in smuggling cocaine out of Colombia. In Europe, for example, cocaine prices have been stable recently, but purity has increased.

Colombian and United States anti-drug warriors, who have poured billions of dollars and untold numbers of lives into the war against cocaine, are recycling the same old ideas which have failed before: manual and aerial erradication and encouraging alternative crops. The government also proposes deepening the military's role as an anti-drug force - an arrangement which will confront soldiers against the same poor population which they mostly come from.

But even if those strategies did work, they'd only push more coca leaf acreage into Peru and Bolivia,

The fantasy: Colombian plans
to reduce coca leaf acreage.

as has happened before.

In Afghanistan, another nation with tremendous U.S. influence, a different drug crop - heroin - has also boomed.

Isn't it time to admit defeat, legalize these substances, and reduce their harm?

The boom in coca plantations is also one cause behind Colombia's accelerating deforestation. If coca plantations were legal, then farmers would lose incentive to chop down jungle to hide their plots, and the state and consumers could exercise at least some influence about how and where coca wase planted.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Suspicious Border Gasoline Boom

Stirring up cocaine in a jungle laboratory. The process uses
lots of gasoline. (Photo: Business Insider) 

The town of Argelia, in the department of Cauca, has some 27,000 residents and 19 gas stations. However, last year the municipality racked up 3.4 million gallons of gasoline sales and 642,000 gallons of diesel sold - some three times as much as just two years before and higher per-capita than sales in Bogotá - despite Argelia's poverty and few cars.

Argelia, Cauca: booming gasoline market. Foto: RCN Radio

The paradoxical situation, reported by El Tiempo, may a simple explanation: Argelia and other rural agricultural communities with booming fuel sales also happen to have booming coca leaf and cocaine economies - and gasoline and diesel are basic ingredients for converting leaves into the drug.

The intersects with many other disfunctions. Because cocaine is illegal, those many millions of gallons of fuel are handled without any regulation or safety laws. So, once exhausted, they're often just dumped into rivers or onto the jungle floor.

The popularity of motor fuels for cocaine production is partly the fault of the Colombian government, which spends a fortune every year on fuel subsidies - particularly in border areas. Fuel subsidies make little sense socially or economically, since they go disproportionately to the wealthy. And they make absolutely no sense at all environmentally, since fossil fuel production takes a huge environmental toll all along its life cycle and burning fuels contributes to global warming. But the subsidies make sense politically, since they buy votes. The pressure to subsidize gasoline is particularly strong in areas near Ecuador and Venezuela, which subsidize their fuels much more than Colombia does.

And by subsidizing gasoline for drivers, Colombia also does so for drug producers.

Officials may be considering various strategies to deal with this problem - altho none of them likely involves raising the price of gasoline to pay for its social and environmental impacts, which would not only make cocaine production more expensive, but would also reduce traffic jams, clean the air and generally make Colombia's cities more liveable.

Solutions which Colombia is more likely to try, such as rationing fuel in some border areas, will inevitably increase smuggling and contraband, particularly from Venezuela, and enrich criminal organizations. Officials also talk about adding a chemical ingredient to fuels to make them less effective for drug making. But expect drug makers to find a way to neutralize this chemical and to increase smuggling across the border, since Colombia's neighbors certainly won't add the ingredient to their own fuels.

There's only one way to end these absurd and ineffective attempts to use ineffective policies to repair a failed one - decriminalize drugs and minimize their harm.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Why Coca Erradication is Doomed

Sweaty coca erradicators reduce the supply of the leaf
 - and raise its market value.

How to convince farmers to give up coca leaf for legal, healthy crops?

These days, government officials and newspaper columnists are debating over the best combination of incentives - such as payments and help with new crops - and punishments, such as forced erradication and prison, if farmers don't agree to voluntarily erradicate their drug crops.

At best, the strategy has huge weaknesses: Coca leaf is a good crop economically, because it requires little care, brings reliable income and can be stored and transported easily after harvest. And in many coca-growing regions the government has little presence, whereas the drug cartels, who encourage or even force farmers to plant coca leaf, are very active.

But, give the government the benefit of the doubt: Perhaps this time voluntary erradication WILL work.

Colombia's coca leaf crop
has boomed in recent years.
(Graph from El Tiempo)

The trouble is, it's all futile, anyway.

After all, there are lots of poor people in Colombia, especially poor farmers. Every time a farmer somewhere gives up growing coca leaf, whether voluntarily or not, that reduces the supply and raises the price. In response, you can be sure that some impoverished farmer somewhere else, if not in Colombia, then in Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela or Africa or Asia, will chop down a patch of jungle and plant the leaf.

It's not that coca leaf farmers are bad people, who want to do harm. I've met some of them. To them, cocaine's harm is a distant, vague concept. And, they say reasonably enough, it's the fault of the consumers who decide to drug themselves.

Colombia's coca leaf crop increase has coincided
with a reduction in acres erradicated.
Chart from Adam Isacson.

Meanwhile, the farmers' needs to feed and clothe their children, to buy schoolbooks and medicines, are immediate and urgent. How many of us would act differently?

The more succesful strategy would be to reduce demand, by helping addicts and decriminalizing drugs, which would reduce their damage in every sense and deprive criminals of a huge income.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

And if Coca Leaves Had Come Across First?

A European man smokes a
tobacco pipe around 1595.
(Drawing by Anthony Chute,
via Wikipedia)

During his voyages of discovery to the Americas, Christopher Columbus's men discovered a novel plant, whose leaves produced a pleasant effect when placed in a pipe and smoked. Soon after, some "were unable to cease using it," reported Spanish Bishop Las Casas. And only a few decades later, tobacco was developing a booming market across Europe.

Chocolate's story is similar: Discovered by the Europeans about 1520, by the early 1600s chocolate drinks sweetened with sugar were becoming popular across Europe.

Workers in the Dutch colony of Java stamp
coca leaves in the early 1900s.
(Image: Wikipedia)

However, a third New World plant with addictive properties caught on more slowly. Carried to Europe in the 1500s, coca and its derivatives didn't become popular in the Old World and United States until the 1800s, when products such as coca wine and cocaine-containing medicines were marketed.

Chocolate drinking, portrayed
by by Philippe Sylvestre
Dufour, 1685.
(Image from Wikipedia)

Today, of course, chocolate and tobacco are both deeply embedded in Western culture, despite the tobacco leaf's severe health effects. Many governments are campaigning against tobacco use, with irregular results. But because of the leaf's addictiveness, cultural role and huge economic power, none will ever completely eliminate it.

All of which makes me wonder: What if cocaine had been exported and popularized first? Was it only a matter of geographic chance that chocolate and tobacco became Western cultural icons, while coca and cocaine become demonized? After all, even coca leaves, which produce no more than a mild narcotic effect when chewed, are on the United Nations' list of banned substances, right along with heroin.

Sure, cocaine's effects on human behavior can be much more intense than that of nicotine and caffeine, the active ingredients in tobacco and chocolate, respectively. However, "research suggests that nicotine is as addictive as heroin, cocaine, or alcohol," according to the United States Centers for Disease Control. And, it'd be easy to argue that tobacco can do you more harm than cocaine can.

Perhaps if columbus had carried coca leaves home in 1505, but tobacco leaves hadn't made it across the ocean until the 1600s, today we'd be sipping coca wine with supper, while tobacco cigarettes would be back-alley contraband. Perhaps.

Coca wine, from DrugLibrary.org

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Shortcut to Legalization?

Soon to stock marijuana? A drugstore on Plaza San Victorino.

Pres. Santos' endorsement of medical marijuana is a step forward - but a tiny one - reducing the harm from Colombia's drug economy.

Along with reducing suffering, Santos cited weakening the criminal enterprises which traffic drugs as a reason for legalizing marijuana for therapeutic uses. That's absurd, since only a tiny fraction of a fraction of Colombia's pot smokers use the drug for medical reasons. And, since whatever legal drug scheme is likely to be complex and cumbersome, a lot of those people will likely continue buying their pot on the black market.

Medicine?
(Photo: California Finest)

But this is a step forward in recognizing that cannabis is not some evil, beyond-the-pale thing. (And is in line with long-time worldwide legal medical uses of cocaine and heroin.) And it brings Colombia a bit closer to the sort of regulated marijuana market being introduced in Uruguay and the U. S. states of Colorado and Washington. Certainly, it jives with Santos' repeated statements that prohibitionism should be reconsidered.

Is that right?
(Photo: Obrag.org)

And perhaps Colombia will find a California-style shortcut to legal cannabis use. After all, in the Golden State - which just happens to be a huge marijuana grower - medical marijuana has morphed into de facto marijuana legalization. All you have to do is find one of the many amenable doctors eager to prescribe marijuana for such conditions as headaches, insomnia or sore knees. Let's hope so.

Santos endorsed a medical marijuana bill introduced into Congress by Sen. Juan Manuel Galan, who father Luis Carlos Galán was assassinated on orders of drug lord Pablo Escobar. How would Colombia administer this? Designating companies to grow and process marijuana? Or would the government farm the stuff, as Uruguay is doing? Would pot be sold in pharmacies?

And how would Colombia handle the inevitable downside? After all, marijuana certainly has medical benefits, but smoking a lot of it can do bad things to people, particularly to young people. Can the state send that message while at the same time offering pot as medicinal?

Medicine, man? (Photo: Wikipedia)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Drug Policy Sanity Breaks Through?

Juan Manuel Santos receives the OAS drug report from OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza yesterday in the Casa de Nariño.

The report is in, and it's not what Washington wanted.

An Organization of American States report presented yesterday in Bogotá recommends drug decriminalization.

“Decriminalization of drug use needs to be considered as a core element in any public health strategy,” concluded the OAS group.

The U.S. government had declared itself open to discussing alternative drug war strategies - just as long as it was clear that only option would be more prohibition.

Predictably, Washington's response to this latests report was to play the same old broken record.

"Any suggestion that nations legalize drugs like heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine runs counter to an evidenced-based, public health approach to drug policy and are not viable alternatives,” said a U.S. government drug policy spokesman.

What evidence is that? More than a decade ago, Portugal decriminalized possessing all drugs, and observers generally consider the experiment a success. On the other hand, the violence fueled by drug prohibition is undeniable evidence of prohibition's failure.

The U.S. position looks increasingly absurd when two U.S. states have legalized marijuana and the drug is de-facto legal (in the guise of 'medial marijuana') in more than a dozen other states - and those U.S. states haven't collapsed into anarchy.

Colombian Pres. Juan Manuel Santos was present at the report's presentation and welcomed its ideas.

"This was what we wanted," Santos said, "empirical evidence without prejudice, and now the real work begins, which is the discussion at the political level. Let it be clear that no one here is defending any position, neither legalization, nor regulation, nor war at any cost.

Many Latin Americans have long believed that Washington insisted on the futile War on Drugs as an excuse to meddle in Latin America. I believe rather that the U.S. insists on these policies for domestic reasons - it doesn't look good to retreat in any kind of war.

But as the U.S.'s position becomes more untenable, it only makes conspiracy theories look more believable.

A U.S. official recently warned that countries should take into consideration the impacts on other countries of their domestic drug policies. That's fair enough. So, is the U.S. looking at the epidemic of violence which its own prohibitionist policies have unleashed across Latin America?
How will this report affect drug policy? I expect it to nudge forward efforts underway, most notably in Uruguay, to legalize marijuana. The report itself observed that the region has little support for legalizing cocaine - even tho cocaine trafficking fuels much of the region's violence. But, in the same way that some call marijuana the 'gateway drug' for drug abuse, perhaps it will also be a gateway for legalization.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Coca Leaves Finally Get a Little Respect

Coca leaves and other products for sale on a Bogotá plaza. The salesman said these were imported from Peru.

Altho technically banned, Colombia's indigenous peoples
 cultivate and market coca leaf products.

For thousands of years, coca leaves have been chewed by Andean indigenous peoples, who also attribute to them religious significance. But then Europeans took coca leaves home and figured out how to extract a drug, which millions of people, particularly north Americans, proceeded to get themselves addicted to.

In 1961, to protect addicts in rich countries, the United Nations prohibited cultivating and chewing the leaves.

The prohibition seems wildly unfair. After all, even during U.S. alcohol Prohibition, grapes were still legal (and were marketed with instructions about how to turn them into an inebriating liquid). Coca leaves contain such a tiny amount of the cocaine alkaloid that they give users just a slight pick-me-up.

Vendors claim that coca products
cure all manner of ailments.

In 2009, to protest the U.N. prohibition, Bolivian Pres. Evo Morales, a one-time coca farmer who still heads a coca farmers organization, withdrew his country from the United Nations Convention on illegal drugs. The prohibition, he said, equated traditional coca leaf farmers with "narcotraffickers and drug users."

The other day, the U.N. readmitted Bolivia - with a special clause permitting coca leaf chewing. Incredibly, 15 countries objected to the exception for coca leaf chewing. And leading the opposition was, of course, the United States.

It's a tiny crack in the drug prohibitionism, and it begins to repair a huge historical double standard. After all, the same 1961 treaty which prohibited indigenous peoples' ancient traditions also included a specific exception for the Coca Cola Company, which adds a cocaine-free coca leaf extract to its soft drink.

But the exception doesn't include the other Andean nations, including Colombia, where indigenous people chew coca leaves and many people buy teas, cookies, ointments and drinks made from the leaves. And, there's of course no mention of the many millions of people all over the world who would surely like to try such coca leaf products, whose makers claim they provide all sorts of health benefits.

So, for the foreseeable future, these leaves, which could provide another export for Colombia and help relieve the country's beleaguered farmers, will remain technically prohibited.

Related Blogposts:

Taking a Courageous Stand Against...Leaves

Good Riddance to 'La Mata que Mata!'
By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Newsflash: Colombia Will Not Fumigate Tobacco!

Tobacco plants wait for harvest
 - and for erradication planes?

Colombia has rejected a World Health Organization plan to limit tobacco farmland in order to reduce tobacco consumption, El Tiempo reports.

Fighting tobacco use is of course fundamental for protecting public health. I recently read about a study which found that, after smoking was prohibited in the workplace, heart attacks dropped 33%! Can you imagine a greater benefit for public health, particularly when second-hand smoke seriously damages the health of non-smokers.

But trying to limit tobacco farming suggests troubling parallels to another less-than-successful anti-drug campaign: the one against coca leaf and cocaine. As Colombia has aggressively erradicated coca leaf acreage, they've just planted more in Peru and Bolivia.

Sure, like cocaine production, tobacco processing is band for the environment (just as tobacco use is bad for people). But helicopters fumigating excess tobacco fields and tobacco farmers responding by chopping down forest to plant illicit tobacco fields would be even worse. Soon after, I imagine, illegally-grown tobacco will be smuggled across the border into Venezuela and loaded onto small planes for illicit flights overseas. Sound familiar?

Rather, the best policy is to discourage tobacco use, as many WHO-promoted policies aim to do. Unfortunately, except for restricting indoor smoking and tobacco advertising, Colombia hasn't bothered to enforce its anti-tobacco laws (at least in Bogotá). Children can still easily buy cigarettes and street vendors openly and illegaly sell cigarettes by the stick. Both crimes could be controlled with sting operations, but the police don't bother. I've also seen large cigarette displays in stores which violate the spirit of the new anti-tobacco law, if perhaps not its letter.

Another disturbing thing noted in El Tiempo's article is Minister of Agriculture Juan Camilo Restrepo's argument that, even if it wanted to, Colombia could not limit tobacco production because of obligations assumed in its free trade agreements. Of course, this is really just an excuse to earn money: Colombia's FTA with the United States allows it to export 4,200 metric tons annually of the stuff. (Keep that in mind you anti-drug warriors.)

But, taking the minister at his word, is it really possible that Colombia's free trade agreements prevent it from protecting its people's health? That's unthinkable - or should be.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Four More Years, and Forty Years Backwards?

Four more years, and forty years into the past?

Just two years into his term, there's already speculation on whether Pres. Juan Manuel Santos will run for reelection - or be permitted to by the Constitution. In any case, it looks to be a challenge, as the president's popularity has dipped below 50% in the face of increased guerrilla violence.

However, another, more immediate, reelection campaign has received much less notice, but deserves the attention of all those concerned about civil liberties.

Attorney General Alejandro Ordóñez, who's held the office since 2008, has begun campaigning for another term, to be decided by a vote by the members of the Senate. His current terms ends with the new year. Some observers are asking whether the many members of Congress who have relatives working in national or regional attorney general's offices should be barred from voting on Ordóñez's bid.

But there's a deeper question of whether or not Ordóñez is the appropriate person for the job - at least in this century.

Colombia's quite progressive 1991 Constitution changed it from a Catholic to a secular nation, but Ordóñez doesn't appear to have noticed.

Every one of Ordóñez's positions I've heard of, from abortion, to gay rights, to drug policy, conforms to the most conservative wing of the Catholic Church, Ordóñez's faith. Look at his repeated efforts to prohibit abortion in all cases, and to block women who have the right to a legal abortion; take his cruel effort to reverse a court decision permitting a New York Times journalist who happened to be gay from adopting two Colombian orphans; or his close-minded opposition to Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro's proposal to provide drugs and support to addicts.

Certainly, Ordóñez has every right to his religion, which deserves all our respect. But turning that faith into public policy, as he appears to do, is wrong and threatens to push Colombia back decades, and leave it out of step with the rest of the world.

By all appearances, Ordoñez, who is 68, is a talented man who is not corrupt and has done his job well on purely law enforcement matters. But attorney general is not the right position for such an ideologically-driven person. Instead, Ordóñez should take his energy and talents elsewhere, such as into Congress, where he can push for his religious principles just as long as his voice and his constituents will allow him.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Free Drugs for Addicts?

Jeyson and Carlos, on Martyrs Plaza, said they've
been using bazuco and living on the street
for about six years.

Mayor Gustavo Petro's idea of creating centers where drug addicts would receive replacement drugs has generated lots of criticism, perhaps a reflection of Bogotanos' fundamental conservatism.

But the idea of such locations, where addicts can find what they crave in a healthier environment, as well as recieve other kinds of support, is used in Canada, Denmark, Switzerland and other places, and presumably works, since they've continued the policy.

Andres says addicts should
have to work for their fix.

And why not try it? After all, the situation could hardly be much worse, with drug addicts wandering many streets and plazas begging for coins and occasionally stealing to get that next fix. If you pass thru certain neighborhoods, then you've had to walk around homeless people sleeping it off on the sidewalk, and sometimes even defecating and urinating in public. It's unpleasant for passers-by and certainly miserable for the homeless, who may live in filth, cold and the rain and feel enslaved by their addictions.

I talked to Andres, an acquaintance who lives in La Candelaria and said he consumes marijuana and bazuco, a cheap and poisonous form of cocaine "but much less than I used to."

Addicts wander near El Bronx.

Andres opined that support centers could improve the lives of addicts and also reduce crime. He suggested that addicts should have to contribute something in return for recieving their fix - such as cleaning up the street.

"If they know that 'I'll sweep these two blocks and then get my vice,' then they'll be less likely to steal," Andres predicted.

'Drug Doses With Control.'

The mayor suggested that one of the support centers could be placed near Martyrs Plaza and El Bronx, an area of addicts and human wastes. A police officer there was dubious about the idea.

If they receive free drugs, "the addicts will just sink deeper," he said.

But he agreed that if the program were combined with rehabilitation, it could be positive.

A homeless man smokes something
in the Santa Fe neighborhood.

The officer also warned about such support centers' impacts on neighbors. However, it's hard to imagine anything worse than the situation which already exists on and around Martyrs Plaza, one of the country's most important historical sites, where drug addicts and drug addled people wander day and night. Support centers could provide, in addition to cleaner drugs, needle exchanges, bathrooms, nurses and perhaps even psychologists. The policy would cost money, but could ultimately save money in improved public health, lower crime and a generally saner city.

The mayor's idea and the reactions to it are also indicative of Colombia's contradictory, even schizoid drug policies. While I talked to the officer, a few feet away other cops frisked young men for drugs - even tho the Supreme Court recently ruled that carrying and using a 'personal drug dosis' was a constitutional right, and even Pres. Santos has said that drug decriminalization is worth considering. But, to my question, the officer replied that the police did not recognize any such right. Yet, a few blocks away at a hip hop concert in Tercer Milenio Park young people were openly smoking pot.

Alcoholics drinking on San Victorino Plaza. The couple kissing alongside aren't paying attention. 

Homeless men sift thru trash on Calle 13. Most homeless people seem to be addicted to bazuco.

Sleeping it off on San Victorino Plaza. 

Men bathe in the Eje Ambiental's pools in La Candelaria. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Shifts in the War on Drugs?

Peña Nieto: Reconsidering the drug war.

When, a few months ago, Colombia and other countries put the War on Drugs up for discussion at the Americas Summit in Cartagena, some people predicted it would open the door to reassessing the prohibitionist policies. 

Three recent events make me suspect that's started happening.

- Last week, Colombia's high court brought back the right to carry a 'personal dosis' of drugs.

- Meanwhile, the Uruguayan government is planning to grow and market marijuana, in order to take the profits away from violent criminal organizations.

- Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Mexican president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto told PBS News Hour that "I'm in favor of opening a new debate in the strategy in the way we fight drug trafficking. It is quite clear that after several years of this fight against drug trafficking, we have more drug consumption, drug use and drug trafficking. That means we are not moving in the right direction. Things are not working."

That's not good news for Washington, which has backed current Mexico Pres. Felipe Calderon's Colombian-style war against Mexico's drug cartels. That strategy has generated huge amounts of violence in Mexico, while producing questionable impacts on the illegal drug trade.

Mexico seems likely to shift strategies under Peña Nieto, whose PRI party has historically made deals with narcotrafficking cartels to reduce violence. The question is how explicit and how dramatic this shift will be, in the face of inevitable criticism from Washington. 



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

A Misaimed Drug War?

A coca leaf farmer in Bolivia's chapare region about a decade ago. His plot had just been chopped down and burnt by U.S.-backed erradicators. (All photos taken by Mike Ceaser in Bolivia about 12 years ago.)

If you've ever tried to open a simple Colombian bank account, only to be required to first document your salary, and also bring Chamber of Commerce certificates proving your employer's legitimacy, and God-only-knows what other papers, then you might enjoy this book by two Los Andes University professors: Anti-Drug Policies In Colombia: Successes, Failures And Mistakes, by Alejandro Gaviria and Daniel Mejía. 

Chapare coca leaves, to be made into cocaine. 

According to this commentary in The Guardian newspaper, the book argues that rich nations' anti-drug warriors have directed their efforts at the easiest targets: farmers, banks, chemical sellers and others in the producer and transit countries, while the banks and drug retailers in the United States and Europe who earn the great majority of the profits, generally get off easy.

Things are of course much more complex than this, but there's also truth here. After all, the generally impoverished coca leaf or heroin poppy farmer, like the 'boys in the hood' dealing grams on streetcorners in Los Angeles, California, or London are obvious targets without lobbyists in the U.S. Congress. The banking executive, who never actually touches illegal drugs, (except perhaps in his expensive private club) and can argue that he doesn't know the origin of the money he manages, is a difficult target.

A family living in the San Pedro Prison in La Paz, Bolivia.
Most likely, the man was there for a minor
drug-related crime. 

Women examine coca leaves in a legal market in Bolivia.
These leaves are supposed to be used for making tea,
chewing or other traditional uses.

The Andes University professors' book also points out that only a few percentage points of cocaine's profits actually stay in Colombia (or Peru or Bolivia), while some 97% of the profit is made in the wealthy consuming countries. This is a predictable situation, and not so different in some ways from legal commodities such as cotton and sugar. After all, in those wealthy countries the costs of labor and other services are much higher. With any product, the cost escalates the closer to the final consumer. But with an illegal drug the effect is much more dramatic because the cost of the alkaloid which produces the high is trifling, while the cost of the danger and trouble of transporting the drug halfway across the globe are immense. Just ask Thomas McFadden, the protagonist of the book Marching Powder, who was locked up in La Paz, Bolivia's hyper-corrupt San Pedro Prison. In San Pedro, McFadden found cheap, plentiful, high quality cocaine. His problem was shipping it to Europe. Standing in the way were transport and bribery costs, the dangers of confistication and arrest and potential violence, all of which raised the final products cost far above what a Colombian campesino could imagine. Of course, the wealthy countries' economies aren't getting rich off of the drug trade, (altho some people and businesses certainly are), since the money also comes from the rich countries' own economies.

A woman sorts coca leaves in legal market in Bolivia. 

The authors' thesis that producer countries pay a disproportionate cost for the War on Drugs is reasonable, but also debatable. After all, developed nations' prisons are packed with drug criminals - creating huge social and economic costs. But unquestionably it is the producer and transit nations such as Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica and Colombia which have suffered most of the violence and corruption for a failed effort, while seeing only a small slice of the revenue.

Some people would certainly argue that this situation is behind Washington and other power centers' prohibitionist policies in the War on Drugs. I personally doubt it, since this money is simply being recycled thru the rich nations' economies, rather than pumped into them. And, if drugs were legal, then you can be certain that both banks and other big companies (Philip Morris? RJ Reynolds?) would be marketing them. On an economics forum, Daniel Mejia, one of the new book's authors, offers the hypothesis that wealthy nations back prohibitionism because it transfers the negative impacts from their nations to the producer and transit countries. After all, If drugs were legalized, prices would drop and consumption would rise, along with its associated health problems. Meanwhile, prohibitionism's impacts are mostly in those other, poorer nations.

But legalizing drugs would also reduce crime and prison overcrowding and generate lots of taxes in wealthy nations, giving them a net benefit.

I suspect that the motives behind prohibition are much simpler: The effort against illegal drugs has been labeled a 'war' and no politician likes to lose a war. Meanwhile, the benefits of ending prohibition are longer term and more difficult to see.

If only, 40 years ago, US Pres. Richard Nixon had picked a less simplistic phrase than 'War on Drugs', then it might be easier to make policy shifts today. Nixon left a lot of bad legacies, but this might be one of his worst.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Amercas Summit Winners and Losers

Winner - Colombian Pres. Juan Manuel Santos: Altho he didn't succeed in achieving consensus for his ideas of reconsidering the War on Drugs, he did come off like a statesman, he got a wave of positive publicity for Colombia and reaffirmed relations with the United States, including setting a date for the (unfortunate) U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Obama and Santos smile about the Free Trade Agreement on the cover of today's El Tiempo.

On the downside, Colombia's relations with Latin America's leftist governments, few of whom attended the summit, became more strained.

Otto Perez Molina.

Winner - Guatemalan Pres. Otto Perez Molina: This ex-military man heading a tiny, poor country put himself onto the global stage for 15 minutes at least by leading the push to reconsider prohibitionist drug policies. Pres. Santos has been the other prominent advocate for a reevaluation of how to deal with drug addiction and violence. Altho the U.S. rejected a change to anti-drug strategies, the issue was discussed for the first time in a major international forum, hopefully opening the gate to further debates. (Surprising, isn't it, that the calls for decriminalization are coming for conservative leaders?)

Broke Even - U.S. Pres. Barack Obama: He generated ill-will by nixing calls to reevaluate the War on Drugs and to allow Cuba to participate in meetings of heads of state. On the other hand, Obama beat the drums for economic growth and reducing poverty, which will play well at home, and buddied up with Pres. Santos. Obama also became a hero just by being the first Afro-American U.S. president in the mostly Afro-Colombian city of Cartagena. But the trip was marred, perhaps even overshadowed, by the Secret Service's drinking-and-prostitution scandal. 

Cristina Fernandez,
no closer to the Falklands.

Loser - Argentine Pres. Cristina Fernandez: She failed to get a consensus behind her drive to pressure England to negotiate the status of the Falkland Islands. Pres. Santos apparently 'forgot' to mention the issue in his closing speech. More likely, Colombia's relationships with the U.S., Canada and ex-British colonies in the Caribbean mattered more to him than Kirchner's futile quest. A miffed Kirchner left the summit early.

Secret Service men
guarding the Pope:
But what did they do
afterwards?

Loser - The U.S. Secret Service: Male members of this supposedly elite security team came off looking more like adolescents who couldn't hold their liquor or keep their pants on. Some of them may lose their jobs because they were caught dallying with prostitutes. Has the Secret Service considered hiring only female agents for its most sensitive positions?

Winner - Cartagena's prostitutes, who got a burst of unexpected publicity thanks to the Secret Service's antics.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Hay Festival: Culture and Drug Policy

The Hay Festival which just ended in Cartagena is an annual celebration of literature, dance, gastronomy and other culture from all over the world. But this year, with much of Latin America wracked by drug-fueled violence, it also carried a subtext about how to address the regional plague.

Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes.

No More Violence

The 2012 festival was headlined by Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, who has spoken out frequently against prohibitionism, which many blame for his nation's soaring violent crime.

"Mexico's policy doesn't end the problem, but worsen's it and makes it insolvable," Fuentes said, who supports gradual drug depenalization beginning with marijuana. "It involves opening an a subject area in which drugs are consumed but aren't a crime, and trafficking ends because it's not profitable anymore."

But the most prominent speaker on drugs was undoubtedly Colombian Pres. Juan Manuel Santos, who made clear that he supports drug depenalization - but only if Colombia has an international consensus behind it.

Massacred migrants in Mexico.

"That solution would be acceptable for Colombia if the whole world accepts it," said Santos (asking for a lot). But for Colombia to go it alone would mean making itself an economic and political pariah.


"We must seek alternatives," Santos added, "because narcotrafficking finances all the illegal groups."

Juan Manuel Santos

Those illegal groups include Colombia's guerrillas, paramilitaries and narcos, as well as the cartels which have turned some Mexican cities into slaughterhouses and created gangs in Brazil, Venezuela and the Caribbean. A recent study found that 40 of the world's 50 most violent cities were in the Americas. (Five of those cities were Colombian, Cali ranking in 11th place. Bogotá was not in the top 50.)

"This subject cannot continue being taboo," Santos asserted.

Nicaraguan novelist
Sergio Ramirez.

Nicaraguan novelist Sergio Ramirez observed that "Central America occupies a tragic position: geographically, it's a bridge for drugs from south to the north and we can't move from there...Just as Mexico experienced a 'Colombianization,' Central America is now being 'Mexicanized.'

For a really strong statement backing drug depenalization, read this statement on the Colombian presidential website. It's striking to me. A position which used to be only whispered in hallways is now out in the open. But will policy follow reasoning?

"Colombia has perhaps been the nation which has suffered most fighting against narcotrafficking. It's cost us our best leaders, journalists, judges and police."

A Botero painting
condemning violence.

Santos then compares the War on Drugs to pedaling a stationary bicycle, and then goes on to recall his time as Colombian defense minister, when he worked with the U.S. D.E.A. and defined 'success' as raising drug prices in U.S. cities. However, Santos observes, those higher prices only made the illegal business even more profitable for those who got their drug shipments thru.

"Take the profits away from organized crime, and maybe take these profits for the state in order to carry out campaigns against consumption, are some practical solutions, which I believe that if adopted on an international level could be effective," Santos said.

Not long ago, these were radical opinions seen only in alternative publications. But here they are expressed by a conservative president of one of the nations which has made the greatest efforts and suffered the most in the War on Drugs.

If some of the novelists and other writers who attended the Hay Festival have their way, perhaps drug decriminalization will change from fiction to fact.  

Here's El Tiempo newspaper's editorial: Drug's Legalization and Taboos

By Mike Ceaser of Bogotá Bike Tours