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This article is ridiculous. The domestic cocaine industry in Colombia is irrelevant. The international market is what drives production. Regardless of domestic

This article is ridiculous. The domestic cocaine industry in Colombia is irrelevant. The international market is what drives production. Regardless of domestic legality, international trade isn't going to become legal just because Colombia wants it to. Even if the US didn't interfere internally, they (and the UN and others) wouldn't change their stance on international trade. The government purchasing domestic production would only increase domestic production, and when they ultimately stopped buying it up due to cost and cancelled the entire program, the international market would be flooded with even more cocaine, and the economic disruption would cause even more internal conflict. Cocaine should be legal everywhere. It's not, though, so this is a stupid idea. A giant unsustainable agricultural subsidy isn't going to reduce domestic production when the entire market is international. On the contrary, it will only increase the size of the market and the amount of violent criminal behavior associated with it. By all means decriminalize consumption (which they've already done), but until there's a legal international market, don't subsidize it.

dfsegoat 6y ago
Not an expert, but knowing what I do about the drug war and our involvement in it: A lot of the domestic pressure within Colombia, MX etc. comes FROM international partners, like the US - Colombia gets a ton [~500M USD] of defense and security related funding for it [1], and we send military partner forces there to train their military and security forces. All of that would need to be unwound as matter of course, regardless of whether or not the plan makes sense. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Colombia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Colombia
Geminidog 6y ago
There's certainly a lot of benefits of legalizing cocaine or heroin. But legalization also increases exposure to say like kids. I know I sipped some alcohol before I turned 21, what if I tried shooting up on heroin or sniffing coke? I think the story here is much more complicated then "legalize" it. Certainly the drug war was a huge mistake but completely legalizing drugs isn't exactly the right solution either. The current opioid epidemic is the result of legalization through medical usage. I'm also willing to bet that people who support complete legalization are users either casual or frequent (not necessarily addicts) so there's a personal agenda going on here as well. Is there anyone who is completely drug free who supports total legalization?
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  I don't think this will happen. Heroin is not cool at all, nobody does that willingly. Coke is a bit more common in certain scenes like big business. But really, whoever wants to do these drugs is doing it already. Legalising is not suddenly going to make people want to use them. In the Netherlands cannabis is legal but it's a really uncool thing to do. Nobody wants to be a stoney. Most people try it once or twice and move on. Others get addicted yes, but really they're going to get it one way or another. There's also a big range between legalising or promoting something. It can stay forbidden but just remove the huge penalties. Because that's what drives those prices up: It attracts the most unsavory types that are willing to take the heavy risk. It drives the huge profits they make and the violence. And yes I've never used any drugs outside of alcohol (which I use infrequently). Not even weed.
  - titanomachy 6y ago
    Interesting, I didn't know how unpopular cannabis is in the Netherlands. I'm not sure if the numbers I found are very comparable, but it seems like about 5% of adults used it at least once last year in NL compared to over 20% in US. I don't think legalization has affected usage much in the US either, it seems you're right that it's determined by other cultural factors rather than laws.
    - spurgu 6y ago
      It aligns with the Dutch people I've met as well - it's surprising!
  - spurgu 6y ago
    > Heroin is not cool at all, nobody does that willingly. People with chronic pain? > Coke is a bit more common in certain scenes like big business. It's really common in many other circles as well, I think you might be surprised. > Legalising is not suddenly going to make people want to use them. Pretty much yes. It's in fact the opposite in many cases. I remember being really interested in drugs (especially psychedelics) in my teenage years precisely because of the associated seemingly neurotic stigma there was (and to a wide extent still is) around the subject of drugs. If there hadn't been any "drugs are bad" campaigns (in school or otherwise) it probably wouldn't have caught my interest in the same way. I knew there was something to it, and I certainly wasn't gonna let laws stop me from finding out what, and I was right. There are lots you can learn about yourself and the mind with various substances. Individuals experimenting with self-discovery shouldn't be illegal. Criminal cartels on the other hand are a whole other topic of discussion.
titanomachy 6y ago
Thanks, that summarizes my thoughts on the article as well. Also, the article says that even in Colombia people will be able to buy cocaine only if their doctor feels that they meet the requirements for pain relief. How many recreational cocaine users are taking it for pain relief?
Ericson2314 6y ago
> The domestic cocaine industry in Colombia is irrelevant Export markets can be "less illegal" if they merely need to hide as domestic consumption, not be completely hidden. This will tame, if not eradicate, the Cartels.
- jason0597 6y ago
  The article says that the proposed law wouldn't allow the selling of cocaine for recreational use, and it would only allow the sale for medicinal use.
munificent 6y ago
I think the right sociological/economic perspective is that this is a proposal to take cocaine income away from drug cartels and move it to the state. This is effectively the state wanting to compete with the cartels economically. There are potential upsides to this. A functioning government has some level of citizen representation and a justice system with some level of accountability. Drug cartels do not. So, if you assume for the moment that coca farmers and others in the cocaine supply chain will be doing that work regardless, the question is mostly: do you want them to live within the bounds of the law and have the government be the power structure that dictates their lives, or do you want drug cartels? The former has plenty of problems and corruption. But the latter is an outright authoritarian power-by-violence regime. Allowing people in the cocaine industry to be law-abiding citizens is probably a good thing. Then there is the longer-term question of what incentives this change would place on society and how it would affect the scale of cocaine production. Anyone can see there's ample risk of a cobra effect here. Whether that outweighs the benefits of removing money from violent cartels is a hard question to answer.
- bob33212 6y ago
  If the government buys the cocaine who are they going to sell it to? Smugglers in Guatemala?
pmoriarty 6y ago
"Cocaine should be legal everywhere. It's not, though, so this is a stupid idea." I have to disagree. I don't know if it's part of the plan, but if cocaine were to become legal in Colombia, then Colombia could become a destination for cocaine tourism, just as the Netherlands became a destination for marijuana tourism. That could result in a lot of tourism revenue (as has been the case for the Netherlands and other countries which legalized drugs). In addition, legalizing cocaine would end organized crime's involvement in cocaine production in Colombia, which would be a huge improvement for the lives of Colombians and for their government and legal system, which are all currently detrimentally impacted by said organized crime and the horrific and widespread violence and corruption that it causes. The increased safety of Colombia, once organized crime is reduced would make it even more desirable as a tourist destination, which would bring in even more tourism revenue. Add to that all the tax revenue that would come from taxing legal cocaine, and the financial incentives for legalizing cocaine become even greater. This sounds like very far from a bad idea, and is in fact the exact same reasoning that was used to legalize drugs in other places all over the world and, to my knowledge, in all cases where this has happened it's been a net positive.
- jedimind 6y ago
  You managed to enumerate the potential happy path benefits without mentioning how the consumption of such hard drugs could potentially disrupt/destroy those 'potential benefits'. How will the (cocaine) tourism and local & international communities be effected when people start dying because of overdosing or potential violent behaviour under the effect of these harmful drugs? Will a potential decrease of violence in one area be surpassed by potentially increased violent behaviour due to cocaine + alcohol and other drug consumption? I am very skeptical about legalising such hard drugs, especially when people fail to mention any negative consequences...
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    "How will the (cocaine) tourism and local & international communities be effected when people start dying because of overdosing or potential violent behaviour under the effect of these harmful drugs?" Why would they overdose if cocaine is legal? Overdosing on illegal drugs is primarily caused by people taking too much of a drug due to a misjudgment of its purity or contents. So that (for example) when someone thinks they're taking 1x of a particular illegal drug, they could actually be taking 2x of it (and that 2x is lethal, whereas 1x would have been just fine). Alternatively, someone might think they're getting 1x of drug X, whereas they might really be getting 10x of drug Y or some unknown mix of drug X and Y, and the quantity of drug Y is lethal. Such misjudgement, in turn, is caused by it being difficult or impossible to judge the purity or contents of drugs you buy on the street. When drugs become legal they are labeled as to dosage and constituency, so their users will know exactly what they're getting, and overdoses will be minimized because non-suicidal users will simply choose to take non-lethal amounts. Quality controls of the legal drug manufacturing process will further minimize adverse effects, compared to black market manufacturing which is a free-for-all in terms of quality (or lack thereof). Users could, of course, still overdose if they mix cocaine with other drugs, but education campaigns should hopefully mitigate that risk, and in any case it won't be any worse than what happens when those same people mix effectively unknown illegal substances. As for cocaine use causing violence, from my understanding it's alcohol that is most likely of all drugs to cause violent behavior, yet most people are not seriously calling for it to be made illegal because of that fact. The violence associated with cocaine is mostly caused not by the drug itself but by organized crime syndicates warring with each other over control of the illegal cocaine market. This source of violence, of course, would be completely eliminated were cocaine to be legalized, as the market would be completely controlled by legal entities, and legal entities (like Pfizer and Merk) don't tend to war violently with one another over turf.
yiyus 6y ago
It's not an article, but an interview. And the interviewee clearly claims that his intention is to start a public debate. You can call it ridiculous and stupid all you want but, looking at this thread, it obviously is working.

dfsegoat 6y ago

Not an expert, but knowing what I do about the drug war and our involvement in it: A lot of the domestic pressure within Colombia, MX etc. comes FROM international partners, like the US - Colombia gets a ton [~500M USD] of defense and security related funding for it [1], and we send military partner forces there to train their military and security forces. All of that would need to be unwound as matter of course, regardless of whether or not the plan makes sense. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Colombia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Colombia

Geminidog 6y ago

There's certainly a lot of benefits of legalizing cocaine or heroin. But legalization also increases exposure to say like kids. I know I sipped some alcohol before I turned 21, what if I tried shooting up on heroin or sniffing coke? I think the story here is much more complicated then "legalize" it. Certainly the drug war was a huge mistake but completely legalizing drugs isn't exactly the right solution either. The current opioid epidemic is the result of legalization through medical usage. I'm also willing to bet that people who support complete legalization are users either casual or frequent (not necessarily addicts) so there's a personal agenda going on here as well. Is there anyone who is completely drug free who supports total legalization?

GekkePrutser 6y ago
I don't think this will happen. Heroin is not cool at all, nobody does that willingly. Coke is a bit more common in certain scenes like big business. But really, whoever wants to do these drugs is doing it already. Legalising is not suddenly going to make people want to use them. In the Netherlands cannabis is legal but it's a really uncool thing to do. Nobody wants to be a stoney. Most people try it once or twice and move on. Others get addicted yes, but really they're going to get it one way or another. There's also a big range between legalising or promoting something. It can stay forbidden but just remove the huge penalties. Because that's what drives those prices up: It attracts the most unsavory types that are willing to take the heavy risk. It drives the huge profits they make and the violence. And yes I've never used any drugs outside of alcohol (which I use infrequently). Not even weed.
- titanomachy 6y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know how unpopular cannabis is in the Netherlands. I'm not sure if the numbers I found are very comparable, but it seems like about 5% of adults used it at least once last year in NL compared to over 20% in US. I don't think legalization has affected usage much in the US either, it seems you're right that it's determined by other cultural factors rather than laws.
  - spurgu 6y ago
    It aligns with the Dutch people I've met as well - it's surprising!
- spurgu 6y ago
  > Heroin is not cool at all, nobody does that willingly. People with chronic pain? > Coke is a bit more common in certain scenes like big business. It's really common in many other circles as well, I think you might be surprised. > Legalising is not suddenly going to make people want to use them. Pretty much yes. It's in fact the opposite in many cases. I remember being really interested in drugs (especially psychedelics) in my teenage years precisely because of the associated seemingly neurotic stigma there was (and to a wide extent still is) around the subject of drugs. If there hadn't been any "drugs are bad" campaigns (in school or otherwise) it probably wouldn't have caught my interest in the same way. I knew there was something to it, and I certainly wasn't gonna let laws stop me from finding out what, and I was right. There are lots you can learn about yourself and the mind with various substances. Individuals experimenting with self-discovery shouldn't be illegal. Criminal cartels on the other hand are a whole other topic of discussion.

titanomachy 6y ago

Thanks, that summarizes my thoughts on the article as well. Also, the article says that even in Colombia people will be able to buy cocaine only if their doctor feels that they meet the requirements for pain relief. How many recreational cocaine users are taking it for pain relief?

Ericson2314 6y ago

> The domestic cocaine industry in Colombia is irrelevant Export markets can be "less illegal" if they merely need to hide as domestic consumption, not be completely hidden. This will tame, if not eradicate, the Cartels.

jason0597 6y ago
The article says that the proposed law wouldn't allow the selling of cocaine for recreational use, and it would only allow the sale for medicinal use.

munificent 6y ago

I think the right sociological/economic perspective is that this is a proposal to take cocaine income away from drug cartels and move it to the state. This is effectively the state wanting to compete with the cartels economically. There are potential upsides to this. A functioning government has some level of citizen representation and a justice system with some level of accountability. Drug cartels do not. So, if you assume for the moment that coca farmers and others in the cocaine supply chain will be doing that work regardless, the question is mostly: do you want them to live within the bounds of the law and have the government be the power structure that dictates their lives, or do you want drug cartels? The former has plenty of problems and corruption. But the latter is an outright authoritarian power-by-violence regime. Allowing people in the cocaine industry to be law-abiding citizens is probably a good thing. Then there is the longer-term question of what incentives this change would place on society and how it would affect the scale of cocaine production. Anyone can see there's ample risk of a cobra effect here. Whether that outweighs the benefits of removing money from violent cartels is a hard question to answer.

bob33212 6y ago
If the government buys the cocaine who are they going to sell it to? Smugglers in Guatemala?

pmoriarty 6y ago

"Cocaine should be legal everywhere. It's not, though, so this is a stupid idea." I have to disagree. I don't know if it's part of the plan, but if cocaine were to become legal in Colombia, then Colombia could become a destination for cocaine tourism, just as the Netherlands became a destination for marijuana tourism. That could result in a lot of tourism revenue (as has been the case for the Netherlands and other countries which legalized drugs). In addition, legalizing cocaine would end organized crime's involvement in cocaine production in Colombia, which would be a huge improvement for the lives of Colombians and for their government and legal system, which are all currently detrimentally impacted by said organized crime and the horrific and widespread violence and corruption that it causes. The increased safety of Colombia, once organized crime is reduced would make it even more desirable as a tourist destination, which would bring in even more tourism revenue. Add to that all the tax revenue that would come from taxing legal cocaine, and the financial incentives for legalizing cocaine become even greater. This sounds like very far from a bad idea, and is in fact the exact same reasoning that was used to legalize drugs in other places all over the world and, to my knowledge, in all cases where this has happened it's been a net positive.

jedimind 6y ago
You managed to enumerate the potential happy path benefits without mentioning how the consumption of such hard drugs could potentially disrupt/destroy those 'potential benefits'. How will the (cocaine) tourism and local & international communities be effected when people start dying because of overdosing or potential violent behaviour under the effect of these harmful drugs? Will a potential decrease of violence in one area be surpassed by potentially increased violent behaviour due to cocaine + alcohol and other drug consumption? I am very skeptical about legalising such hard drugs, especially when people fail to mention any negative consequences...
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  "How will the (cocaine) tourism and local & international communities be effected when people start dying because of overdosing or potential violent behaviour under the effect of these harmful drugs?" Why would they overdose if cocaine is legal? Overdosing on illegal drugs is primarily caused by people taking too much of a drug due to a misjudgment of its purity or contents. So that (for example) when someone thinks they're taking 1x of a particular illegal drug, they could actually be taking 2x of it (and that 2x is lethal, whereas 1x would have been just fine). Alternatively, someone might think they're getting 1x of drug X, whereas they might really be getting 10x of drug Y or some unknown mix of drug X and Y, and the quantity of drug Y is lethal. Such misjudgement, in turn, is caused by it being difficult or impossible to judge the purity or contents of drugs you buy on the street. When drugs become legal they are labeled as to dosage and constituency, so their users will know exactly what they're getting, and overdoses will be minimized because non-suicidal users will simply choose to take non-lethal amounts. Quality controls of the legal drug manufacturing process will further minimize adverse effects, compared to black market manufacturing which is a free-for-all in terms of quality (or lack thereof). Users could, of course, still overdose if they mix cocaine with other drugs, but education campaigns should hopefully mitigate that risk, and in any case it won't be any worse than what happens when those same people mix effectively unknown illegal substances. As for cocaine use causing violence, from my understanding it's alcohol that is most likely of all drugs to cause violent behavior, yet most people are not seriously calling for it to be made illegal because of that fact. The violence associated with cocaine is mostly caused not by the drug itself but by organized crime syndicates warring with each other over control of the illegal cocaine market. This source of violence, of course, would be completely eliminated were cocaine to be legalized, as the market would be completely controlled by legal entities, and legal entities (like Pfizer and Merk) don't tend to war violently with one another over turf.

yiyus 6y ago

It's not an article, but an interview. And the interviewee clearly claims that his intention is to start a public debate. You can call it ridiculous and stupid all you want but, looking at this thread, it obviously is working.