Cocaine Production in Columbia

Cocaine Production in Columbia

Columbia is the largest coca producing country in the world. Over 70% of our nation's cocaine is produced and manufactured in Columbia ("battles won" 1). The cocaine production in Columbia is different than the rest of the Andean countries because it is grown on plots of land that are gigantic, whereas in Peru and Bolivia coca is grown on small plots of land. Cocaine producing plants are poor farmer's biggest cash crop. Battles are fought every day between the government and farmers over thousands of acres that produce the raw material for cocaine. In the region that most of these farmers live the growing of coca and the transformation to cocaine is the largest and only functioning industry. It is a reliable income that has brought money into the country's economy for over forty years ("a crop" 1). For many of these farmers, coca is the only plant that can bring enough money to their family for survival. Coffee, sugar, and bananas have been a major export for farmers in the past but a worldwide over-production has lead the farmers to producing fields of cocoa bushes. The lone functioning governments in parts of Columbia are leftist guerrillas. In these areas order is maintained by FARC, which is the countries largest rebel army.

The Columbian governments have put laws into place since the 1990's to cut down on drug trafficking. "A legal structure has been in place that encourages traffickers to surrender and collaborate with the authorities in return for judicial leniency"(Clawson 90). The drug trafficking in Columbia is causing many problems for Columbian and United States governments. These drug traffickers earn billions of dollars every year selling cocaine to Europe and the United States.

The use of the coca plant has been a major way of life for indigenous people for thousands of years. Before coca was mainly used to produce cocaine, it was used by laborers as a mild narcotic to suppress hunger and give energy. "Some 70 different folk remedies include coca, sometimes in combination with other plants"(Lee 24).

"Cocaine is one of 13 alkaloids produced from the coca leaf, which has been cultivated in South America for at least 2,000 years"(Lee 21). In Columbia it is illegal to grow coca plants unlike Bolivia and Peru but Columbia is still the world's largest producer of Cocaine. This is credit to drug cartels in Columbia that are run by people like Pablo Escobar, a powerful drug trafficker from the seventies to the nineties. The current day farmers have been cultivating this plant because of its profitability in producing cocaine. A field of plants can be harvested from three to six times a year. "Cocaine is not hard to make"(Lee 30). It is the trafficking to other countries that is risky. Columbia in the past, "to a greater or lesser extent, is economically dependent on the cocaine industry. The industry is not by any means the most effective source of revenue the economy; in fact, the wealth that it generates is not converted very efficiently into economic growth and may even retard growth in certain areas"(Lee 35). Columbia, as a developing nation, does receive great value economically with the exporting of so much cocaine. The money that is coming into their country helps stabilize their economy and the currency. This money also helps to finance much needed imports and develops the countries creditworthiness.

The drug wars that are fought in Columbia against traffickers and growers are mainly funded by the U.S. government. In 2000, the U.S. reportedly spent over three billion dollars to kill large amounts of cocoa plants that Columbian farmers were producing (battles won). "At the last count by the United Nations, in 2003, land under coca in Columbia was down to 213,200 acres from a peak of over half a million acres in 2000"(Battles Won). This was only a minor setback for the drug lords but it severely hurt the farmer's incomes.

The only way for most farmers in this country to provide for their families is to produce coca plants for the drug cartels. It is easy money for the farmers compared to producing other products. "Survival is the operative word for these farmers, and la coca assures them of that. The sturdy brush is easy to grow, its leaves are easy to transform into the coca paste that farmers sell to dealers, who then cart the product through the jungle to secret laboratories where it is refined into pure cocaine"("Columbia's cocaine" 1). A kilo of cocoa paste only sells for about 900 dollars which covers food for the farmer's family, taxes on the land, labor, and the production costs. After all these costs the farmers do not incur any revenue. The farmers are surviving but are not making any profit. On the other hand, the guerilla groups profit over 100 million dollars per year. In coca producing parts of Columbia, the coca paste can be used like currency. Most general stores that sell everyday products have a scale on the counter to weigh coca paste that in return can be used as a sort of store credit.

Another reason that coca is grown by so many farmers is the fact that it is "a hardy and adaptable perennial shrub with several sub-species. It flourishes on steep slopes and in infertile acidic soils, that is, in conditions that restrict the growth of other crops"(Clawson 31). This plant can even grow throughout the rainforest almost anywhere in South America. It is easy for the farmers to produce the leaves every year because the bush can produce for 10 to 25 years depending if they are sprayed with herbicides or not. By far coca is the most profitable and easiest crop to sustain.

"With no alternative crop to sustain them, farmers are forced to turn to coca, which still sells at a high price. The U.S. program of crop destruction simply ruins crop farmers, and usually fails to even stop them from producing coca."(The Absurdity). This crop destruction is accomplished by dropping poisons over the crops. These poisons "usually have toxic side effects and widespread use of herbicide in a region like Columbia is sure to result in habitat destruction and a loss of endangered species" (The Absurdity). There is another alternative that the U.S. and Columbian governments are looking into which is a new bioweapon against the plants. It is a fungus called oxysporum. This fungus cuts off the plants nutrient supply thereby destroying it. Opponents of this idea argue that unleashing this rapidly spreading fungus could cause mutations in many other types of vegetation in the region. Another downfall of the fungus is that it could destroy much of Columbia's rainforests, which would be devastating.