jimnyc
12-01-2020, 03:29 PM
What a great idea!! :rolleyes:
So the plan is to make the growers legal and buy up all of their product - from every farmer in the country. And then sell it, coca leaves in order to create the things within the article. The monies to be made is miniscule in comparison to selling the purest of cocaine. Granted, the growers get the shaft in the beginning and the cartel and others will buy up their supply at cheap rates in comparison to what it will ultimately sell of on the streets of other countries. These growers will grow all of the leaves and then do all the dirty work behind the scenes in remote areas in the mountains. But then the guys who buy it will then already start making a fortune on the first turnaround.
And the govt. thinks that all of these criminal activities and all of those involved in profiting, will now alter the way they do business & be willing to take massive cuts?
Or will the govt. turn around and be involved in the drug trade themselves? Wouldn't surprise me. If their plan works there would be one massive dent taken out of drug activity. If they only take over the drug business, it's liable to increase the supply.
---
Colombia Is Considering Legalizing Its Massive Cocaine Industry
A senator is trying to get a bill through congress that makes the government buy up and sell the country’s cocaine production.
MEDELLÍN, Colombia - VICE World News sat down with Senator Iván Marulanda to talk about his cocaine legalization bill, which is currently moving through Colombia’s congress.
After 40 years of U.S. - backed anti-drug policy that criminalizes the coca leaf, Marulanda and a group of members of congress want to change tack.
The bill attempts to create a legal industry that distributes cocaine to users for pain relief, not recreational use. Like that in Bolivia, it also hopes to bring hundreds of thousands of illegal coca farmers out of the shadows into a legal, homegrown industry.
Senator Iván Marulanda: It proposes that the state buy the entirety of Colombia’s coca harvest.
There are 200,000 farmer families linked to coca growing. The state would buy coca at market prices. The programs for coca eradication each year cost four trillion pesos ($1 billion). Buying the entire coca harvest each year would cost 2.6 trillion pesos ($680 million). It costs less to buy the harvest than to destroy it.
With that intervention from the government, two fundamental things would happen. First, you would bring 200,000 families into a legal sphere where they would no longer be persecuted by the state. Usually, these farm families end up displacing themselves, deforesting new areas, and re-planting coca while they’re running from the authorities. Second, Colombia is destroying around 300,000 hectares of forest per year. It’s estimated that coca-growing families are responsible for 25 percent of that annual deforestation. Colombia’s ecosystems are the collateral damage.
What would the government do with all the coca leaves?
The state would supply raw materials to artisanal industries - primarily of indigenous origin - that would produce foods, baking flour, medicinal products and drinks like tea. Those ancestral industries in Colombia haven’t had the chance to develop because the raw material is stigmatized and persecuted by the justice authorities. So, on one hand, it’s about developing these industries. Indigenous groups have a strong relationship with the leaf because they’ve taken care of it for hundreds of years.
Now, the coca leaf has other properties too. Studies show it has a significant amount of calcium. There are nutritional properties. And so there are opportunities to open up to industrial production. There are also ways to make fertilizers.
Rest - https://www.vice.com/en/article/epdv3j/colombia-is-considering-legalizing-its-massive-cocaine-industry
So the plan is to make the growers legal and buy up all of their product - from every farmer in the country. And then sell it, coca leaves in order to create the things within the article. The monies to be made is miniscule in comparison to selling the purest of cocaine. Granted, the growers get the shaft in the beginning and the cartel and others will buy up their supply at cheap rates in comparison to what it will ultimately sell of on the streets of other countries. These growers will grow all of the leaves and then do all the dirty work behind the scenes in remote areas in the mountains. But then the guys who buy it will then already start making a fortune on the first turnaround.
And the govt. thinks that all of these criminal activities and all of those involved in profiting, will now alter the way they do business & be willing to take massive cuts?
Or will the govt. turn around and be involved in the drug trade themselves? Wouldn't surprise me. If their plan works there would be one massive dent taken out of drug activity. If they only take over the drug business, it's liable to increase the supply.
---
Colombia Is Considering Legalizing Its Massive Cocaine Industry
A senator is trying to get a bill through congress that makes the government buy up and sell the country’s cocaine production.
MEDELLÍN, Colombia - VICE World News sat down with Senator Iván Marulanda to talk about his cocaine legalization bill, which is currently moving through Colombia’s congress.
After 40 years of U.S. - backed anti-drug policy that criminalizes the coca leaf, Marulanda and a group of members of congress want to change tack.
The bill attempts to create a legal industry that distributes cocaine to users for pain relief, not recreational use. Like that in Bolivia, it also hopes to bring hundreds of thousands of illegal coca farmers out of the shadows into a legal, homegrown industry.
Senator Iván Marulanda: It proposes that the state buy the entirety of Colombia’s coca harvest.
There are 200,000 farmer families linked to coca growing. The state would buy coca at market prices. The programs for coca eradication each year cost four trillion pesos ($1 billion). Buying the entire coca harvest each year would cost 2.6 trillion pesos ($680 million). It costs less to buy the harvest than to destroy it.
With that intervention from the government, two fundamental things would happen. First, you would bring 200,000 families into a legal sphere where they would no longer be persecuted by the state. Usually, these farm families end up displacing themselves, deforesting new areas, and re-planting coca while they’re running from the authorities. Second, Colombia is destroying around 300,000 hectares of forest per year. It’s estimated that coca-growing families are responsible for 25 percent of that annual deforestation. Colombia’s ecosystems are the collateral damage.
What would the government do with all the coca leaves?
The state would supply raw materials to artisanal industries - primarily of indigenous origin - that would produce foods, baking flour, medicinal products and drinks like tea. Those ancestral industries in Colombia haven’t had the chance to develop because the raw material is stigmatized and persecuted by the justice authorities. So, on one hand, it’s about developing these industries. Indigenous groups have a strong relationship with the leaf because they’ve taken care of it for hundreds of years.
Now, the coca leaf has other properties too. Studies show it has a significant amount of calcium. There are nutritional properties. And so there are opportunities to open up to industrial production. There are also ways to make fertilizers.
Rest - https://www.vice.com/en/article/epdv3j/colombia-is-considering-legalizing-its-massive-cocaine-industry