Pubdate: Sun, 13 Feb 2005
Source: Observer, The (UK)
Copyright: 2005 The Observer
Contact:  http://www.observer.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/315
Author: Antony Barnett
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

PLEA FOR BOYCOTT OF 'UNETHICAL' COCAINE

A 'boycott cocaine' campaign to shame the middle-classes into shunning the 
fashionable drug has moved a step closer after the Foreign Office gave its 
blessing. Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell has called for people to 
reject cocaine in the same way they snubbed South African wine during 
apartheid. Rammell, whose brief includes Latin America, drugs and 
international crime, is considering launching a government initiative along 
with groups such as Oxfam, aimed at exposing the horrors of the 
cocaine-fuelled conflict in Colombia.

Some 80 per cent of cocaine used in Britain comes from Colombia, where the 
drug fuels a conflict between left-wing guerrillas and right-wing 
paramilitaries. Each year thousands of Colombians are murdered in the 
conflict. Both sides in the struggle use the cocaine trade to finance their 
arsenals.

Rammell told The Observer : 'During the apartheid era it was socially taboo 
to serve South African wine. Although the Colombian government does not 
support the drug industry I believe that anybody offering cocaine should 
feel equally ostracised. Every year thousands of Colombians are murdered as 
a result of a brutal conflict fuelled by cocaine.'

Rammell's intervention comes only a week after Sir Ian Blair, the 
Metropolitan Police Commissioner, referred to the 'trail of blood' that 
leads from a line of cocaine in Britain to thousands of deaths in Colombia. 
Blair raised the issue of people who insist on fair trade coffee and 
organic food but are happy to use cocaine.

In the last two years more than 51,000 people have been murdered in 
Colombia as a result of the conflict - almost 70 a day. More than three 
million Colombians have been forced to leave their homes, many after 
members of their families have been murdered.

Last week Blair announced a crackdown on middle-class drug users after 
senior officers said London and other big cities were in the thrall of a 
drugs 'epidemic'.

He added: 'People think the price of a wrap of cocaine is 50 quid, but the 
cost is misery on estates here and a trail of blood back to Colombia. 
Someone has died to bring it to the dinner party. People who wouldn't dream 
of having non-organic vegetables don't notice the blood on their fingers.'
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