Pubdate: Sun, 09 Mar 2008
Source: Observer, The (UK)
Copyright: 2008 The Observer
Contact:  http://www.observer.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/315
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

THE DEVASTATING PRICE OF BRITAIN'S COCAINE HABIT

The average cocaine user in Britain probably does not spend too much 
time thinking about where their drug of choice comes from. If they 
did, they might reflect on how it travels from South America to the 
bars, clubs and kitchen tables of the UK. Though manufactured in 
Latin America, the demand for the drug is driven almost entirely by 
Western countries. It is no wonder that politicians in producer 
countries have felt unjustly criticised for not being able to curtail 
a drug trade that has grown exponentially in answer to the voracious 
appetites of Londoners, New Yorkers and others in the West.

Consumers here should reflect more deeply on the impact their habit 
has on people around the world. For cocaine, a drug that has halved 
in price over the last 10 years and become as readily available as 
marijuana, has a longer 'tail' than most other outlawed substances. 
The trail of misery, destruction, violence and death it leaves in its 
wake as it departs South America is undeniable. Those who choose to 
use cocaine are directly responsible. If the demand dries up, then 
the misery stops. Those who decide to use it are making an 
unconscionable decision.

Cocaine differs in some marked respects from other drugs. While 
marijuana is frequently grown under lamps in suburban warehouses, and 
chemical drugs such as ecstasy are produced in European laboratories, 
cocaine is predominantly an export from the dirt-poor rural areas of 
South America to the developed world.

Only last week, the world watched a dramatic military standoff unfold 
after Colombian troops crossed into Ecuador to kill a leader of the 
Farc terrorist group, which is financed by the money it makes from 
the coca leaf. The tense confrontation also sucked in Venezuela and 
threatens to have geopolitical consequences in the months ahead.

But it is not just the poor of South America whose lives are 
blighted. As the UN's drugs tsar describes in The Observer today, 
cocaine has recently begun to devastate much of Africa's Gold Coast, 
a staging post in the international trade. Traffickers have been 
forced to change the routes along which they ply their trade by the 
success of police actions in the Caribbean. Indeed, in tiny 
Guinea-Bissau, cocaine has created a twisted state, where appalling 
poverty clashes grotesquely with the lavish lifestyles of the drug dealers.

Huge quantities of cocaine continue to be consumed across Britain, 
often by people who pride themselves on their ethical lifestyles. 
There is nothing fashionable about cocaine and users should remember 
the dreadful impact it has on the lives of millions of people in 
distant countries. Cocaine might now be relatively cheap, but for 
those whose path it crosses the price is still devastatingly high.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom