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I was aware of the reputation. How could I not be? But after five years in recovery it no longer felt like a concern. First stop Bogota. A vibrant mishmash of red-tiled colonial buildings with painted balcony balustrades. Narrow streets swoop up green mountains decapitated by clouds. A few people smoking crack in the street. That always grabs my attention. Then, curious red brick neighbourhoods that could have been transplanted from Oxford. They sprouted in rebellion against Spanish influence, after the 19th century wars for independence. He told me of a park with lots of parties and drugs and great opportunities to be robbed. I worried this was too ambiguous, and then wondered whether this was strategic ambiguity, that sneaky part of me leaving the door ajar without overtly leading him on. I felt a thrill of excitement, my skin tingling. What new experiences awaited in that light-flooded valley? He paused for a moment then reached into the glove compartment and handed me a box of injectable oxycodone ampoules. At this point my body became a travelling circus. My stomach launched into all sorts of acrobatics, somersaults, soaring trapeze stunts, fireworks going off down my spine, my breath hot and heavy like a fire breather, elephants stomping a foreboding death march across my brain, and my mind teetering on a tightrope above it all, its little arms outstretched, flailing to stay balanced and not tumble into the chaos below. I handed them back like a hot potato. Words that could have been said? Eventually, my urge to maintain polite conversation — the least consequential of all the urges and competing priorities clashing inside me — overrode everything. Just a few hours of fun, then leave it all behind and see the city, do what I came here for. The pharmaceutical protagonist of these fantasies, inches from my knees, was easy to cast. Then the rational voice kicked in: half a day? Yeah right. But… things are different now; after five years, you know enough about this beast to keep it in check. A one off would be fine. Just one more time. You can take it or leave it, which means you can definitely take it then leave it. Finally I hauled myself out of that debate and marvelled at how two voices, so distinct and persuasive, can co-exist in the same mind. We arrived at the hostel and the fantasies remained, for now, unconsummated. But the deviant part of my mind saw it as an investment. Now the sensible thing would have been to delete his number and forget all about it. And that idea certainly occurred to me. Yes, just in case. Upstairs in my room, two very wise courses of action occurred to me: delete his number, call someone. Neither were followed. Instead I chose a moderately wise course of action that kept the fantasies at bay until my eyes closed for the night — distract the shit out of myself. Arriving at Botero Plaza, my eyes shimmied across the curving chessboard facade of the Palacio Cultural. Plump Botero statues bulged from plinths. But despite this visual feast, my attention was quickly consumed by people smoking crack around the perimeter. He theatrically brandished a colossal crack pipe, leaning back at 45 degrees, Matrix style. He went to light it, but performed yet another improbable feat; he paused, and brandished the pipe some more like a traffic conductor, before finally taking a hit. Beside him stood a woman, tranquil, calmly lighting her pipe over and over, without changing her posture or expression. My mind slipped into theirs and I wondered what they were feeling. My stomach lurched. Back on the bus I summoned the most vivid, euphoric snippets of speedball memories, like a butcher selecting the finest cuts of meat, savouring them until that circus started up again. Then I realised what was happening and how dangerous that was, and conjured the most miserable moments of those days, like a horror film connoisseur on a YouTube binge, seeing my old self sick and lonely, in a wonderful city surrounded by friends, yet unable to experience anything except cravings and misery. That shut the circus down. Funny that the best thing I could do for myself was tap into my worst memories. Imagining things induces similar neurological and physiological responses to actually experiencing them, which is why imaginal exposure can be such a valuable intervention for phobias, and safe-place imagery so helpful for PTSD. We can wreak havoc with our imagination, but we can also harness it to cultivate more helpful states. Sitting on that bus, I did both, over and over. A dizzying cycle of self-sabotage and self-preservation. He was reassuringly unconcerned. They come from nowhere, and if you let them, they disappear back where they came from; fucking nowhere. Research suggests a new thought arises every 4. What the hell should we do with them? Metacognitive perspectives suggest that our relationship with our thoughts matters more than their contents. The way we think about our thoughts determines the impact they have. Problematic metacognitive patterns in addiction include believing that you must control your thoughts and that thoughts are dangerous, which are significant predictors of relapse. I recalled my work with OCD, and the thought-action-fusion fallacy, which leads people to believe that thinking about something makes it more likely to occur. But you can think really hard about sitting down, whilst remaining standing. Having these thoughts after five years of recovery did not mean I was destined to enact them, or that something was going fundamentally wrong. The thoughts meant nothing at all, as long as I let them. The campaign waged by that craving voice boils down to a single message: it feels so good. There is nothing new there. And sadly, in a way that is true. Nothing can feel as good as that intense flash of euphoria. One of the challenges of recovery is to accept slow burning pleasures instead. When you forgo the sublime intensity of narcotics, you need to find excitement elsewhere. And by God, Colombia was the right place to do that. Communa 13, with its brick buildings stacked precariously on a steep hillside, was one of the most violent parts. In , police raided Communa 13, killing nine people and wounding scores more. But since then, local projects and community centres have brought it back to life. The installation of nearly m of escalators has plugged it into the city. Buildings bloom with murals. Street dancers and rappers get crowds bouncing. The anthill alleys are cramped but not oppressive. It feels more vivid for the compression, human friction sparking festivity. But it also got me pondering my own complicity with the violence they were recovering from. Are western drug users responsible in part for the trail of destruction from Colombian coca fields to western mirrors and crack pipes? Speaking to the UN in September shortly after his election victory, Petro said :. The sickness of society will not be cured by spilling glyphosate in the jungle. The jungle is not responsible. Society educated towards endless consumption, stupid confusion between consumption and happiness is what makes it possible for the pockets of the rich to be filled. Those responsible for drug addiction are not the forest. It is the lack of rationality of world power. Decreasing drug consumption does not need wars. It needs for all of us to build a better society with more solidarity, with more affection, where the intensity of life will save people from addiction. Art by Rhys James artbyrhysjames. I walked into the Botero Museum and started laughing like a delighted child. One painting shows a plump little conical nubbin of a Catholic bishop walking through a forest in a flamboyant pink frock, with a pink umbrella no rain and his pink cape trailing far behind. He is ludicrously, determinedly extravagant and inelegant against the effortless elegance of the towering trees behind. He is ridiculous. In a way that combination of levity and love is a guide to our relationship with ourselves. Laugh at the sincerity of our weird little pursuits, but love ourselves for the persistence of our pursuit, even in the face of this absurdity. Another painting, El Estudio, shows a colossal nude model, a vast expanse of buttocks dominating the foreground at eye level. The miniscule head of the painter peers at her from behind the canvas. His gaze is solemn and diligent, but the scaling mismatch renders his task and his solemnity absurd. How could he have enough paint? Standing in front of those inflated buttocks, I experienced an awe-inspiring sense of deflation like de Botton in the Sinai Mountains. I felt small and insignificant, like the pea-headed painter, and that downsizing left me floating free like a peanut shell dropped from a cliff top. I was drunk without drinking, and that is a good place to be in recovery. Forgoing those pleasures was a pleasure in itself. After an easy ride in recovery of late, the temptation to say yes reminded me of the thrill of saying no. Bobbing on a boat out at sea, I rolled backwards into another world. Instantly unplugged are the parts of your mind that process the past and the future and self and others. You are nobody. Just a floating awareness of coral brains covered in winding labyrinths and wrinkled purple pancake stacks. Architecturally adventurous alien cities. Flailing claws hint at crustaceans. A moray eel protrudes like a leathery hand puppet. Accusatory eyes. Accusing who? Not me. There is no me. Social anxiety does not exist here. Back on the surface the heavens had opened. I squeezed onto a bus into town. He looked up and smiled at me watching him watching. I felt alive. This is how I want to use this soggy bundle of neurons to pleasure myself, I thought. Keep mainlining reality. View all posts by Joel Lewin. The artwork by Rhys James adds a nice touch to the piece. Like Like. Enjoyed reading about your journey in the physical and mind. Skip to content. When I said I was going to Colombia some eyebrows were raised. Do you like drugs? Lots of heroin. When bad memories are medicine Arriving at Botero Plaza, my eyes shimmied across the curving chessboard facade of the Palacio Cultural. It was time to call my sponsor. Intensity of experience The campaign waged by that craving voice boils down to a single message: it feels so good. But… nothing feels so good. Speaking to the UN in September shortly after his election victory, Petro said : The sickness of society will not be cured by spilling glyphosate in the jungle. Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like Loading Next Dancing sober: the final frontier. Published by Joel Lewin. Leave a comment Cancel reply. Comment Reblog Subscribe Subscribed. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. Loading Comments Email Required Name Required Website.

Why Are Colombian Groups Trafficking Cocaine Paste to Europe?

Barranquilla buying coke

Coca prices have collapsed in parts of Colombia amid record hectares of cultivation. Could oversupply do what years of eradication have failed to achieve, prompting coca farmers to switch to legal crops? This is wishful thinking, as world cocaine prices remain stable even as new markets in Asia are developed by traffickers, with European mafias assuming a growing role in the global trade. The reasons behind the decline in coca prices in parts of Colombia obey three different dynamics: conflict in areas of cultivation, which creates uncertainty and keeps buyers away; the saturation of drug smuggling routes out of Colombia amid high seizures; and the extraordinarily rapid growth in coca cultivation, with which supply chains have struggled to keep pace. But we believe that during this gap will be closed, and global organized crime, especially in Colombia and Peru, will enjoy bloated profits. They also provided a one-stop shop for traffickers, not only securing access to the raw material, but protecting drug laboratories, internal movement corridors, and departure points. Now traffickers have to deal with multiple warring factions in areas the FARC once dominated: the eastern plains, the southern jungles, and much of the Pacific coastline. And it will adapt fast. Potential cocaine production in Colombia alone has increased since by tons. UNODC figures had possible cocaine production at 1, tons in , and at 1, tons in This is a huge potential windfall for transnational organized crime and already Mexican and European traffickers are queuing up to get their share of the Colombian cocaine bonanza. With the growing volume of cocaine shipments, seizures are up. Yet the seizure rate is barely keeping up with the increase in production, while the government policy to reduce eradication of drug crops means that potential cocaine production is still rising, even if, as the UNODC suggested to InSight Crime, coca cultivation is leveling off. There is currently cocaine stacked up in the supply chain, waiting for export. This is a non-perishable product that has a shelf life, if vacuum-packed, of at least five years. The US market for cocaine has remained relatively stable for years. The European market is still growing. Of the 10 largest seizures of cocaine in European history, five were recorded during , according to an InSight Crime database. European criminals are increasingly being arrested upstream in Latin America as they negotiate to secure cocaine at its source and seek to maximize their earnings per kilogram by arranging their own transport. The InSight Crime database also revealed that 38 senior European drug traffickers have been arrested across Latin America and the Caribbean since , more than the previous 10 years combined, with Italians leading the tally, followed by the Dutch, and then traffickers from the Balkans. Here there are strong middle classes with significant incomes, virgin markets ripe for exploitation. The traffickers consulted expressed no worries of international prices falling. They were focused on diversifying markets beyond the traditional destinations of the United States and Western Europe. Control of the business will be achieved when one of the warring factions gains hegemonic control over certain coca-growing areas. Ideology now plays little part in the Colombian civil conflict, and different factions have already shown a willingness to work with foes in the interests of maximizing earnings from the drug trade. While conflict between different factions will continue in certain parts of Colombia during , in others it seems likely that new front lines and cooperation agreements will be negotiated, allowing the cocaine business to flourish once again. While coca cultivation has grown exponentially in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia have also seen increases. What is worrying in these two nations is how political chaos is pushing counternarcotics strategies further and further down the list of government priorities. In Peru, President Pedro Castillo was removed from office and imprisoned in December , while his deputy and successor, Dina Boluarte, has faced widespread civil unrest. Bolivia is preparing for general elections for the presidency and Congress in In Colombia, Petro has seen his approval ratings drop to the lowest point of his tenure. All of this means that there will be diminishing resistance to cocaine trafficking during in the main production nations, while transnational organized crime sorts out its supply chain issues. A worrying development has been the establishment of industrial plantations of coca outside of the three traditional growers of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Venezuela, Guatemala, and Honduras have now replicated the cocaine production system established in Colombia, with coca fields alongside laboratories and airstrips or close to other departure points. While still in its infancy in these nations, Colombia has shown that despite billions in US aid aimed at reducing production, once coca takes root it is very difficult to eradicate. Central America is now an ideal place to grow coca. The damage of the cocaine trade is not restricted to the producer nations. As interdiction in Colombia improves, traffickers need to find new ways of getting the drugs to market. And with there being no land bridge to Europe, maritime trafficking is the norm, meaning that ports with international container shipping are particularly sought after by transnational organized crime. Perhaps the most sobering story of the dangers for any transit nation has been that of Ecuador during With the port of Guayaquil one of the principal contamination points for cocaine shipments heading to Europe, the country has seen its murder rate quadruple over the last five years and seen native organized crime, allied with Colombians, Mexicans, and Europeans drug trafficking organizations, undergo unprecedented growth. So much so that criminals did not hesitate, in August , to assassinate a presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, who was campaigning on a tough security platform. Cocaine has long been the foundation of transnational organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean. While synthetic drug production, illegal gold mining, human smuggling, and human trafficking, as well as environmental crime, earned billions for criminal syndicates in , cocaine remains the principal driver of criminal evolution and earnings. So, when those cocaine earnings can increase by billions of dollars, the threats to Latin America and the Caribbean are potentially very grave. How many new cartel members can be recruited with increased cocaine earnings? How many officials can be corrupted, how many communities can be won over, how much more state penetration and criminal governance will we see in a region where democracy is already under siege? And how much more violence will be generated as different criminal groups, with state embedded allies, fight for control of the trade? Latin America faces a new challenge in an established criminal economy during While Europe has awoken to the threats the cocaine trade presents to the Old World, dedicating more resources and home and upstream, to fight the drug flow, the United States, long the dominant regional player in the fight against cocaine, has lost focus. Fentanyl and migration dominate the political agenda in Washington, even as the country readies for presidential elections, while US influence in Latin America wanes, especially in the two nations key to fighting the cocaine scourge: Colombia and Mexico. While transnational organized crime will focus during on the cocaine bonanza, politicians across the region are going to be distracted. McDermott has more than two decades of experience reporting from around Latin America. He is a former British Army officer, who saw active More by Jeremy McDermott. In , Dudley More by Steven Dudley. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a weekly digest of the latest organized crime news and stay up-to-date on major events, trends, and criminal dynamics from across the region. Donate today to empower research and analysis about organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, from the ground up. Skip to content. Jeremy McDermott. Steven Dudley. Stay Informed With InSight Crime Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a weekly digest of the latest organized crime news and stay up-to-date on major events, trends, and criminal dynamics from across the region.

Barranquilla buying coke