allenlovesgreen

Buying cocaine is 'giving money to war'
5/25/09|Times Union| by Craig Kielburger, Marc Kielburger

It seemed strange so many people finished their meals at the same time as Colombia's former-president César Gaviria.

We were seated next to him at a dinner in the Latin American nation when he invited us outside to continue our conversation. We pushed aside our plates and slowly rose.

So did another third of the room.

We walked out discussing Gaviria's role in the War on Drugs. He had fought the powerful Medellin Cartel led by the infamous Pablo Escobar. During his presidential campaign, candidates had a better chance of being assassinated than elected. Gaviria felt that sting personally. His sister was murdered in 2006.

That's when it became clear the people walking among us weren't a coincidence — they were a security escort. That's also when Gaviria explained the drug trade might be Latin America's issue, but it's North America's problem.

From cocaine in Colombia to opium in Afghanistan to marijuana in West Africa, the drug trade inhabits a dangerous world. Since mid-January, we have felt this violence in British Columbia's 20 gang-related murders. These incidents are rightly appalling but only a taste of what Latin America and other war-torn nations have experienced for decades.

Gaviria now advises Mexico on dealing with its 10,000 drug-related murders since 2006. That's how he's come to the conclusion that the only stability offered in this violent business comes from North American demand.

Our strategy in the War on Drugs has traditionally been to cut off supply. Aircrafts locate coca farms and drop a powerful herbicide on the plants. This successfully kills it and everything else including legal crops like bananas, coffee and other livelihoods of poor, rural farmers.

Despite treating more than 130,000 hectares in 2005 alone, the CIA says that growers began to aggressively replant new terrain, virtually cancelling out earlier efforts.

It's the steady North American demand that makes this replanting so lucrative. The annual profit for a hectare of coffee, one of Colombia's main exports, is estimated at about $500 while coca will bring in $5,000.

For one young woman, that price difference makes the decision of what to plant a no-brainer.

"The farmers are thinking, 'My kids are starving,'" says Carolina Arcila, a 26-year-old Colombian refugee. "If someone tells you to plant a legal crop and get paid nothing, why would you?"

Unlike students in Canada or the United States, Arcila explained that growing up in Colombia she never saw cocaine in her high school. She did, however, see its effects.

As a teenager, she met returned child soldiers who told her about the brainwashing tactics of the guerrilla armies. She also spoke with individuals who had been kidnapped. One man was tied to a tree for seven months and guarded by a group of soldiers her own age.

Two weeks before her family fled to Canada as refugees, three of Arcila's school-aged friends were kidnapped.

All atrocities in the name of the drug trade. But, it wasn't until Arcila got to Canada that she actually saw the narcotic.

That's when the bubbly young woman with a seemingly permanent smile got mad.

"Do you understand that when you buy cocaine here, you're giving money to war?" she asked. "It's the same as just handing them a gun."

But guns are exactly the strategy we've taken in the past — and it's the strategy we're currently working with. In April, U.S. President Barack Obama's requested $80 million for Black Hawk helicopters to help Mexico fight its growing drug cartels.

As Gaviria stepped into his bullet-proof SUV, that's where his exasperation came out. The man is understandably tired.

Tired of watching his people die. Tired of the negative portrayals of his country. Tired of no one taking responsibility for our demand.

That's where the long-term solution lies. He's just tired of waiting.

Buzzby

Demand reduction is a useful strategy, but not one that will ever stop the demand for drugs. I've never met anyone who has stopped using anything because of the evils up the supply chain. They stop or reduce their usage based on what's good for them, not some stranger half a world away.

Wanting to get high is a part of human nature. Every society that has access uses recreational drugs. They arbitrarily accept some drugs as legitimate and some are taboo. What we're up against is the arbitrary nature of this selection. If we are modern and scientific, if we approach the question rationally, our society has chosen dangerous drugs to be legitimate and much safer ones to be taboo.

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claygooding

The atrocities caused by prohibition are so evident,that the continued practice of the folly makes you wonder if the learning curve of our elected officials isn't a little flat.

claygooding

When you prohibit people from doing something,it must be a judgment call,at the time of enactment,and only history will record the success or
failure of the prohibition. And the fact that the government of the United
States has announced a legal market for a drug that was listed,and is still listed,as a dangerous drug,isn't helping anyone sort out what they are supposed to do. Countries willing to destroy pot fields hesitate to destroy
possible medical marijuana.
And if the United States is changing policies,shouldn't they wait and see if
something changes about cocaine,and any other drug. Their farmwers need a cash crop just as bad as we do,if not worse.
And stopping demand,,,,,how? Locking people up doesn't work. Rehab spas
don't work. If you make anything illegal that gives users a sense of pleasure
you are wasting your time,simply because life is enough of a challenge with
too many rules and too short a time to be hassled because you are doing something that hurts no one,but you. If what a person is doing is harmful too anyone else,then its wrong,but every adult has the right to sail his own boat,his own way.
The only way to decrease the demand for illicit drugs,is too make them licit.

Vesey

We can go to an alcohol bar and get in a fight and it's all in good fun, but a guy can't do a line of coke and fight without being arrested.

The injustice! I want my fights to be as far under the influence as possible.

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mcduffee420

lots of good feedback on this article,I think that all drugs should be legal even acid,meth,crack.....excedra(wow i cant spell excedra,lol) off-topics /but to have the fda or gov or some health specialist grow/produce the product from shwag to the juditsu suflalala(not just for weed either).but I think it would be better that way then i know im buying safer products,not getting any risk of arrest,not supplying a dealer with wealth,keeping it away from kids as studys have shown works for cigs.I think it will happen,but not soon.Marijuana will be legal within 6 months-1 year in california,and it will be like dominoes falling fo the rest of the country

Larkins

The US dropping the war analogy doesn't mean that wars like this kid experiences will end until we do actually end the war and legalize/regulate drugs.

I understand her outrage, but what she and our government don't realize is that they are on the wrong side of the "war" and that they'll lose every time. If she wants the war to end, let her convince prohibitionists to lay down arms and give it up.

I'm certainly not happy about the violence either, and I certainly choose a more civil disobedience and political battle front on which to fight. But I recognize that there are two sides and both are responsible for the continued conflict.

But only one side in the actual war proper (the government) uses force against it's mostly non-violent opponent (their citizens).

Gangs and cartels and drug dealers are not actually on either side of the "war on drugs" ... organized crime is a third party that is taking advantage of the conflict by exploiting drugs users and spitting in the face of governments.

We can easily equate the illegal drug production and distribution industry (and the violent people who defend their trade) with arms dealers in a conventional war.

Arms dealers don't care which side in a war is winning just as long as the war continues. They'll sell to whoever wants their product and they don't want the conflict to end. Their market is only viable while the conflict continues, and their influence will only dissipate after an outbreak of peace.

Perhaps the sudden outbreak of common sense that has been the last few months of media attention in the marijuana debate lead to the new head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske, calling for an end to the metaphor of war for the battle against drug users. Perhaps he could see the logical end of the increased scrutiny on the war on drugs (and especially the violence on our southern border) is that the average American would be better able to see cartels for the arms dealers they are.

And there isn't anything the government needs more in their work to end the right of an individual to choose what to do with their own body than for individuals to not see clearly what is happening around them.

The eyes of the American people are beginning to open. Throwing out another distraction or changing the analogy does nothing but delay the inevitable. There is a conflict, and organized crime isn't on either side. There is a conflict, and, no matter what you call it, it will always be the government fighting against the freedom and liberty of its people.