Cocaina: A Book on Those Who Make It (30 page)

Rangel represents both of the quite different perspectives that dominate the legalisation trend in Latin America. The Colombian constitution, in the process of being dismantled, expresses the libertarian notion that everyone has the right to do with their body what they wish, provided it does not hurt others, while the resolution to decriminalise drug use in Mexico in 2009 was based on
consequential
ethical principles: the Mexican lawmakers were not primarily concerned about where to draw the limitations of state control but about pragmatically estimating the degree of suffering, and came to the conclusion that some bans generate more misery than they prevent. Hairsplitting, one might think, but this distinction is essential in order to understand the constantly changing role that drugs new and old play in all cultures of the world.

But the libertarian and pragmatic traditions almost always coincide in hands-on politics — as they have for Rangel — and today their mutual counter pole is prohibitionism: now making a comeback in Colombia and already strong in the United States, Scandinavia, and the Muslim world, but support for which is on the rapid decline in much of Europe and Latin America. The philosophy behind the bans originates in a religious or Kantian imperative in which it is simply morally wrong to do drugs, regardless of the consequences. Harm-reduction initiatives such as methadone and needle-exchange programs, or recognition of the existence of ‘unproblematic drug use’, is, in this tradition, very hard to accept, since the imperative is absolute and loses meaning as soon as it is made relative; the so-called warning signs carry more weight than the factual consequences, in the same way that it is always wrong for those who oppose abortion to terminate a pregnancy, irrespective of the circumstances.

It is exactly the economic and social consequences of Latin America’s entire bitter experience with cocaine — including the counter war — that have prompted several of the continent’s nations to abandon prohibitionist standpoints. In the 40 years since the war on drugs began, supply and demand have only increased, and the costs of the counter efforts have also increased continually, if counted in drug-war killings, swelling prison populations, escalating corruption, and democracies eroded by the mafia.

‘The basic idea behind the war on cocaine,’ says Rangel, ‘was that if supply could be decreased then the going rate on the end markets would increase dramatically, after which a significant decline in overall consumption would occur, the ultimate result being the complete elimination of demand. But after decades of employing this strategy, the results have been exactly the opposite. Today, there is more cocaine in the world than ever, the prices have fallen, and more people than ever before are consuming. To this already mounting list one could add all the problems directly attributable to the actual ban: organised crime, violence, corruption, and loss of quality control over substances. After taking everything into consideration, I believe that decriminalisation of drugs and total legalisation is, in the long run, all included, the least damaging option. Drug trafficking is a hydra that can sprout a new head at any time and has the ability to withstand every attack through a new mutation.’

The notion that the industry has the ability to reinvent itself constantly is a key factor in why an alternative policy is emerging in Latin America today. When in the 1990s Washington managed to dismantle Escobar and Gacha’s routes through the Carribean — the quickest way from Colombia to the United States — it only meant that the majority of trafficking relocated to Mexico, the next-most economical route. In 1991 50 per cent of all cocaine from Colombia entered the United States through Mexico, a figure that increased to 90 per cent 15 years later, and as a result of that development, the country absorbed a large portion of South America’s organised crime. Today, the whole Mexican democratic system is under threat, and since 2006 more than 20,000 people have been killed in drug-related purges.

Unlike the big Colombian cartels of the 1980s and 1990s, Mexican traffickers — now in control of the entire North American market — have diversified the business and today deal in cocaine and cannabis as well as heroin and methamphetamines. A slight decline in the demand for cocaine has been detected in the US market in recent years, but the gap has been filled in abundance by rising demand for methamphetamines. And when the land designated for cocaine cultivation in Colombia decreased after years of heavy herbicide spraying, cultivation in Peru and Bolivia increased correspondingly. Yet the fastest thing in the business to undergo a mutation has been human capital. The Mexican cartels, which alone employee 450,000 people, generate sales of 20,000 million USD per annum. One kilo of cocaine costs 2000 USD in Colombia, 12,000 USD in Mexico, and between 30,000 and 50,000 USD in the United States and Europe. That same kilo can cost up to 90,000 USD on the streets of New York, Madrid, London, or Sydney. The people who oversee the later stages of the exponential value curve — Mexican cartels control the US market, while the Colombian and Italian mafias cover large parts of the European — earn astronomical amounts, and thus the inflow of people willing to risk their lives on the carousel is infinite.

‘Wars shouldn’t be declared on what cannot be won. The story of drugs is never-ending.’ Alfredo Rangel’s conviction that the war is ‘never-ending’ and that decriminalisation is necessary — in some domains, at least — is now widely shared among former politicians and officers who have been involved in the anti-drug war but have stepped down or retired and are now able to speak freely. The major names in this category — Ernesto Zedillo, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and César Gaviria, former Mexican, Brazilian, and Colombian presidents respectively — published a report in 2009, in which they supported the legalisation of cannabis for pragmatic reasons. (Since then Cardoso has taken it a step further, proposing the same for cocaine.) For the first time since the war on drugs began, high-profile politicians openly defended the idea not to crack down with sporadic military action, but to pull the rug out from under the mafia by structural and economic means. Although cocaine is the substance that helped to build up the Mexican successors to the Medellín and Cali Cartels, today cannabis — by far the most common of all illegal drugs — is responsible for much of the revenue to organised crime. In Mexico a significant proportion of all the resources invested in killing prosecutors, corrupting politicians, and maintaining mafia extravagances comes from cannabis, and the former presidents consider this much too high a price tag in light of the relatively limited adverse effects of the drug. A pan-American or global legalisation of cannabis, goes the argument, would move almost all production to the United States, the world’s largest consumer of both cannabis and cocaine, where it would be manufactured more effectively and closer to the market. But above all, such a measure would cut organised-crime profits in half.

However, Rangel’s perspective is more radical. As a Colombian, his focus is on cocaine, and he believes that the 6.8 billion USD the United States has invested up to now in ending coca production in the nation should have been allocated differently — or, more correctly, that the anti-drug operations have done much more harm than good. In his most recent book he outlines a three-step approach many would call naïve, but which he believes is the only way. ‘This isn’t something one country can do on its own. The issue of narcotics is regulated at the international level, and everything done from this point on must happen there. Colombia has signed a global agreement, which of course cannot be breeched, but there are things that can be done. Herbicide spraying has brought only perverse consequences — socially, economically, environmentally. It has also been counterproductive: coca cultivation has spread to every corner of the nation, and production has doubled. Consequently, I think efforts have to target a completely different link in the cocaine chain — that is, the point at which it leaves the country. This would cripple crime organisations directly, instead of the small farmers, which is important, as state attacks on the poor peasants have had disastrous consequences in terms of increasing guerrilla support. Concentrating on export routes would keep large amounts of cocaine from getting transported out as planned, which in turn would disrupt things for those working in the earlier stages: the labs would produce less, the farmers wouldn’t be able to deliver as much raw material, and many middlemen would lose their jobs. Once the oversupply is greater, the cash value on coca leaves will plummet, and then alternative crops would be able to compete with coca. But this isn’t a solution, just the first step.

‘The second is to make cocaine a central issue in peace talks. Drugs were never part of the peace negotiations carried out with paramilitary groups during the first decade of the 2000s, and this was a major mistake. This issue needs to be discussed, and an agreement reached; the guerrillas have to assume the responsibility for certain things, and the state for others. For instance, the FARC — in consultation with its troops and social bases — would commit itself to eliminating coca cultivation, and in exchange, the government would agree to invest heavily in alternative crops and to provide new infrastructure, subsidies, micro credits, and land reform. Today, many farmers grow coca solely because small farming here has failed, since their markets have disappeared with globalisation. They have to be given the chance to make a comeback. Obviously this is a huge issue that demands cooperation at all levels of society, but with this method I believe we can bring down production much more dramatically than has previously been the case.

‘Thirdly, at the international level, we need to bring an end to prohibition within the global framework of regulation. Implementing legalisation in one country without consulting other nations would be an enormous risk, not least because the country in question would be isolated and condemned. But a first step is to decriminalise consumption, at least of smaller amounts, which is exactly what is happening now in Latin America, some US states, and certain EU countries. After that, gradual steps will be taken, depending upon those results. You have to try new things. Experiment. Evaluate. Take a step back. Try something else. The problem with today’s global policy is that exactly the same methods are being applied again and again, but with the expectation that the outcome will be different. Every scientist knows that if all the circumstances are identical, it’s sheer stupidity to expect new results. A reorganisation at the global level doesn’t require a consensus in the UN, but what is important is that cocaine-producing nations, transit nations, and nations of consumption are all in agreement. Colombia is the country with the most combined experience, and if such an agreement can be reached between, say, Colombia, the US, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and the EU, then I believe that the entire course can be changed on a global scale.’ Alfredo Rangel speaks as if he is absolutely certain that the future is on his side, but he does not deny that the transformation he advocates comes with great social risks. ‘Obviously there are many, such as the risk of a marginal rise in consumption. But with awareness campaigns and better supervision, I don’t think the number of drug abusers will increase simply because the number of those who use drugs responsibly does. If six out of ten users today have to seek help for drug abuse, it may well be that only four will need help even if there are 12 users. All you can do is to speculate about what the risks could be, compare them with the enormous costs we have today, and then to take a stance. As far as I’m concerned, those costs cannot possibly outweigh the ones we’re already paying now, at least in the case of this country. It’s important to be pragmatic and weigh in on both the positives and the negatives.’

Yet the prohibitionists think that legalisation would not only lead to a marginal increase in consumption but to an extreme one. The example most often used is legal drugs: despite all the difficulties in controlling today’s illegal narcotics, the fact is that these drugs yield far fewer victims than legal drugs such as tobacco or alcohol. However, Rangel is not impressed by this argument, since on that perspective the only ‘victims’ are those who have been directly created by the drug; it forgets all the victims — mostly poor people in the south — of the wars and crime structures created by the bans.

He also believes the idea that consumption would increase dramatically is far from given. ‘One can never be sure. But there have been attempts we can learn from. In Portugal, consumption of all drugs was decriminalised and abuse didn’t go up but down. In the Netherlands, cannabis was legalised and consumption increased, but not to the extent expected. And much of the increase was, and still is, owing to all the tourists who go there to buy legal marijuana. If you look at the number of people who abuse drugs, there is no correlation between the increase in consumption and the number of abusers. There are so many other variables involved: tradition, culture, poverty, level of education, social maladjustment, spread of organised crime, and what kind of awareness campaigns the politicians carry out. Drug abuse is an extremely complicated social issue, and you can’t expect to have the same results in every country. Every society reacts differently to decriminalisation, and must respond with different social and educational measures.’

Sometimes it sounds as if he believes that a global or semi-global legalisation is inevitable, but this isn’t the case. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he says. ‘On the contrary — I think it will take time for such an approach to receive wide support. It’s important to recognise that general truths don’t automatically generate the same outcome in all environments. While it’s certainly true that drugs cause violence and corruption, it doesn’t necessarily mean that more drug trafficking will always lead to more violence. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. In Colombia, violence and corruption escalated on a par with production, but in more recent years both violence and corruption have actually fallen, while drug trafficking hasn’t. Today, Colombia produces more cocaine and fewer murders, whereas before we had less cocaine but a much higher homicide rate. There’s no direct connection. What has happened is that the mafia has changed, evolved. The drug traffickers have learned that it’s a bad idea to declare war on the state, since such wars can never be won. They have learned to use no more violence than is absolutely necessary, no overly demonstrative violence. This is a new phenomenon. A phenomenon of the future.’