Thoughts from the void: Cannabis and Colombia

Colombia has been synonymous with cocaine and its drug cartels, and to a lesser extent with heroin, for some time now. Recently, the country has lost some of its sheen, or should I say taint, to the methamphetamine and fentanyl cartels of Mexico and the Far East and the heroin cartels of the Middle East. A large reason has been that the voracious consumer of all drugs, the US, has increased its appetite for methamphetamine even as Mexico has stepped in to cater to it, while the Colombian cocaine cartels face increasing drug enforcement action from both local and American agencies. Fentanyl can be manufactured anywhere and does not depend on any plant, unlike cocaine and heroin, so the US has turned self sufficient in this regard, further leading to Colombia's cocaine and heroin export decline.

For the people of Colombia however, things are as bad as it has been for a long time. The natural coca plant, which was a source of recreation and stimulation, for vast numbers of its people for a long time, was prohibited. In the 20th century, federal US government's sustained pressure to prohibit cannabis had the effect of streamlining the supply chain that provided it access to cocaine and heroin from Colombia. Access to opium from the Middle East and China being difficult, places like Colombia presented a more attractive option. So in the name of protecting people from harm, the Colombian government in partnership with the federal US government and its drug enforcement arm, the DEA, destroyed a traditional, healthy and safe way of life through cannabis, paving the way for the introduction of cocaine and heroin both in Colombia and in the US. Over a period of time, huge and powerful cartels were formed, armed to the teeth with US made and supplied weapons, controlling the manufacture, distribution and sale of cocaine and heroin. Now whether this was an unintended result of overzealous action by the US and Colombian governments, or if it was a carefully crafted strategy to sideline cannabis, the drug of the poor natives, and to replace it with cocaine and heroin, far more interesting to affluent urban American people, is a matter of speculation.

The state of cannabis, the herb that sustained millions for thousands of years, has also only gotten worse over time. The clampdown on it has only increased in Colombia, still with the involvement of the US DEA, which seems determined to keep it illegal in Colombia even as many states in the US have already legalized for adult recreational use. Most of the people who cultivate or consume cannabis in Colombia probably fear not just Colombian and US drug enforcement but also the heroin and cocaine drug cartels who view cannabis as serious competition. Cannabis probably still survives among the indigenous people and in remote places and among the people who understand its recreational, medical and social history. However, for the most part by now, heroin and cocaine have made deep inroads into the lives of the Colombian people as well, with many addicted to these lethal drugs and succumbing to them as is happening in the US or succumbing to the associated drug wars. Where there was once a natural sustainable medicinal plant, Colombia has chemical drugs that contaminate not just humans but the entire ecosystem rendering it increasingly unfit for life. Who stands to gain from all this is worth pondering over and if we do so we can then see who is behind this whole situation.

Huge amounts of cannabis crops were decimated in joint action by the governments of the US and Colombia. Many farmers were intimidated, arrested, threatened and possibly harmed. The harms to indigenous communities and to the indigenous varieties of cannabis is largely unknown. UNODC reports in its World Drug Report 2020 that Colombia was one one the countries with the largest cannabis seizures between the period 2008-2018. So the opposition posed by cannabis to cocaine and heroin has been systematically dealt with by law enforcement. To add insult to the injury inflicted on the people, recently Colombia has been going all out to woo western pharmaceutical companies to cultivate and process cannabis for export to them. The people remain the least priority for the government. The president does not hesitate to take the moral high ground against drugs at any given opportunity but the ground reality appears to be a government bent on protecting its cocaine and heroin and ensuring that cannabis and natural coca do not become a threat.

It is vital for all sections of Colombian society to recognize the plant's agricultural, medicinal, industrial, economic, tourism, environmental and recreational potential and to legalize the plant with home growing being allowed. Countries like Canada and Uruguay that have already legalized recreational use as well as countries like Mexico, the federal US and South Africa that are close to recreational use legalization cite human rights, improving public health, reducing crime, decreasing the black market, improving law enforcement, reforming criminal justice, improving the economy and industry, etc. as some of the primary reasons for taking the step.

To bring a turnaround to this mess is a very straightforward step but a step that now means going against organizations that have grown, become powerful and thrive on the current state of affairs, powerful politicians in both Colombia and the US, law enforcement bodies, drug enforcement bodies, drug cartels, pharmaceutical companies, legal and illegal, and who knows who. The straightforward step is the legalization for recreational use of cannabis once again like Uruguay was bold enough to do but Uruguay probably did not have the additional baggage of feeding America's cocaine and heroin habit and the undivided attention and aggression that came with it. Mexico, with its drug cartels and drug romance with the US, is possibly more similar to Colombia than Uruguay is. Mexico appears poised to legalize cannabis in 2021 and represents an ideal along with Uruguay that Colombia can look to emulate. The straightforward step would mean restoring to native communities the way of life that they once had, to the farmers the crop that they once cherished, to the people the healthy, medicinal, recreational plant that they loved and to the land the plant that healed it. Who will take this step in Colombia? Who can think beyond personal selfish greed and see the greater good of the people of Colombia and the world?

In December 2020, the UN voted to remove cannabis from its most restricted Schedule IV category of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. It does, however, still remain in Schedule I, which is the least restrictive. This one move by the UN itself should be sufficient to bring about the recreational legalization of cannabis in every nation and an overhaul of national drug laws.

It must be noted that in most places where cannabis legalization for recreational purposes has happened it took the efforts of the people who mobilized themselves through grassroots level movements to bring about this change. Left to lawmakers legalization would have been impossible, as the main interests of lawmakers concern the protection of the big industries opposed to cannabis such as pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, medical, alcohol and tobacco. For something that truly benefits the people, the people themselves have had to make the change.

Listed below are articles taken from various media related to the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of your truly at the time of reading the article.

'There is a great incentive for trafficking organizations to expand the fentanyl market: the large associated revenues. Compared with heroin, the production costs of single-dose fentanyls are substantially lower. For instance, it may cost between $1,400 and $3,500 to synthesize 1 kg of fentanyl, which could bring a return of between $1 million and $1.5 million from street sales. For comparison, 1 kg of heroin purchased from Colombia may cost $5,000 to $7,000,99 around $53,000 at the wholesale level in the United States and around $400,000 at the retail level in the United States. With fentanyls, the logistics for supply are also more flexible because fentanyls can be manufactured anywhere and are not subject to the climatic conditions or the vulnerable conditions required for the largescale cultivation of opium poppy.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

Another example of pharma companies establishing a stranglehold over the cannabis plant in a country working with the government. Legalizing cannabis for recreational use and home growing in Colombia will benefit the people rather than the current model where only big industry monopolies and the super rich stand to gain..

'The announcement of imminent domestic sales is particularly positive for Khiron, which is headquartered in Toronto but primarily operates in Colombia.

The company has been focusing on establishing domestic medical infrastructure to serve Colombian patients, whereas competitors have largely positioned themselves to capitalize on low-cost production for export opportunities. So far, those opportunities have not materialized for high-THC products.

Khiron “anticipates fulfilling its first prescriptions of full-spectrum, high-CBD formulations within days,” the company said in a news release Friday, adding that it foresees a market developing with about 6 million potential patients for medical cannabis products in Colombia.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/first-medical-cannabis-sales-in-colombia-imminent-a-year-later-than-expected/

'Campo said the plan is to form a “joint venture with a company in the U.S. or anywhere in the world” that wants hemp or marijuana cultivars from Uruguay, where the hemp is grown. Currently the Sannabis hemp farm has nearly 27 acres to plant, with room to grow cannabis under contract for interested companies, Campo said.

Campo also said his company has applied to register some 150 cannabis strains in Colombia and awaits approval. However, Colombia doesn’t allow the export of raw cannabis flower, so the plants will have to be exported from Uruguay. About a dozen companies had licenses to grow hemp in Uruguay as of September 2019.'
https://hempindustrydaily.com/colombia-companys-hemp-exports-to-u-s-stalled-amid-pandemic-delays/

'A 2019 report from WOLA, a human rights advocacy group in Latin America, outlines in detail the damage that glyphosate inflicts on the water table in the regions it is used as well as what WOLA describes as "triple deforestation." Here's how it works: Forests are cleared to adapt the land for the illicit crops. Then, aerial fumigation directly causes indiscriminate deforestation and damage to food crops before, finally, growers flee to new regions to plant again, launching new cycles of deforestation all over again.

Official figures from the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology, and Environmental Studies in Colombia indicate that deforestation reached 124,035 hectares (over 300,000 acres) in 2015 as a direct result of this program. And a great deal of coca is grown in the Amazon region of the country, where delicate rainforest ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to the damage caused to the water table and to indiscriminate defoliation'
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/colombia-resume-fumigating-its-coca-fields-glyphosate

'Most heroin (and morphine) trafficking in the Americas continues to take place within North America, i.e., from Mexico to the United States and, to a far lesser extent, from Colombia and from Guatemala (typically via Mexico) to the United States. Based on forensic profiling, United States authorities estimated in 2017 that over 90 per cent of the heroin samples analysed originated in Mexico and 4 per cent in South America, while around 1 per cent originated in South-West Asia. This stands in stark contrast to a decade earlier (2007), when only 25 per cent was sourced from Mexico and 70 per cent was imported from South America.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'In 2018, the largest quantities of cannabis herb seized worldwide continued to be those reported by Paraguay, followed by the United States and India. Cannabis herb produced in Paraguay is reported to have been mainly destined for neighbouring Brazil (77 per cent) and Argentina (20 per cent). Over the period 2008–2018, the largest cannabis herb seizures worldwide took place in the United States, followed by Mexico, Paraguay, Colombia, Nigeria, Morocco, Brazil, India and Egypt' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

Afghanistan and Mexico source the heroin and morphine. Mexico, Thailand, Myanmar and China source the methamphetamine. The Middle East and Eastern Europe sources the amphetamine. The US consumes heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Europe consumes heroin, morphine, methamphetamine and amphetamine. Asia consumes heroin, morphine and methamphetamine. Australia consumes methamphetamine. The Middle East consumes heroin and amphetamine. West Asia consumes heroin and methamphetamine. All countries grow and consume cannabis. Opioids, methamphetamine and amphetamines kill the most in terms of drug deaths, cannabis kills none. Who are the leading opponents to cannabis legalization and leading enforcers of global anti-cannabis policy? The countries involved the most in heroin, morphine, amphetamines and methamphetamines. They put on a mask of concern about harms from drugs, produce, sell and consume the most dangerous synthetic drugs and vehemently oppose cannabis legalization worldwide while clandestinely feeding their habits and protecting their sources. They use arms and armies to protect and promote their synthetic drug habits, and drug money to fund and wage a war on cannabis everywhere, pushing man and planet ever closer to death on massive scales and away from the safe, healing cannabis herb...
Jul 10, 2020, 1:14 PM

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https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2020/11/cannabis-and-medical-industry.html

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https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2020/06/with-no-scientific-basis-global-drug.html

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