Cocaina: A Book on Those Who Make It Read Online Free PDF Page A

nation that, in the space of just a few years, has become one of the world’s most important routes for cocaine trafficking. According to the United Nations, 40 per cent of all cocaine smuggled from the northern Andes to Europe today passes through Venezuela.
    South of the snow-capped peaks is the hub itself: Colombia, the heart of the global cocaine market, the source of the millions of packages of powder shipped out on a daily basis to all corners of the globe. This is the chaotic country where the assassination of Pablo Escobar in 1993 gave rise to even worse monsters —paramilitary right-wing terrorists who, backed by drug money, were able to interfere with a third of the seats in the nation’s congress during the 2000s.
    But the most interesting thing about the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is that this is where the story began. In recent decades Colombia has produced the lion’s share of all the cocaine consumed in the world, and the mystery is how this came to be. Technically speaking, cocaine can be grown and processed in some 30 countries around the world; over time, however, the vast majority of cultivation and production came to be concentrated in this nation. Today Colombia is the only nation where all three of the most sought-after recreational drugs — cocaine, heroin, and marijuana — are produced in large quantities, and in no other country has illegal drug production had such dramatic consequences. Being the world’s largest supplier of cocaine has significantly altered the nation in many ways: from transforming legal institutions, to sparking major changes in the value system of the inhabitants, to dictating the financial terms of the country, and to making armed conflict a permanent fixture of society. Not least, drugs have come to play an increasingly pivotal role in Colombian politics.
    Most climates are represented in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, from icy glaciers to sunny beaches, and the lower regions are covered by thick rainforest and arid deserts inhabited by ancient indigenous tribes. The place has always been an isolated entity — culturally and geologically an island of sorts, albeit on solid ground — which, like many other parts of Colombia, has over the years been difficult to access for authorities and invaders alike.
    In the northwestern-most corners of South America, there was — unlike in the places today known as Peru, Bolivia, or Mexico — no dominant Inca or Aztec empire whose leaders and structures of power could be conquered and used by the Spanish. Rather, in Colombia there were hundreds of small, separate indigenous tribes, each with their own culture, language, economy, and history. The Spaniards found a solution to their frustration over their inability to dominate the disparate tribes by importing slaves from Africa. However, given the rough terrain of Colombia, which consists of three mountain ranges and long coasts on both oceans — not to mention that half the country is covered in jungle — many slaves were able to escape, hide, and ultimately establish their own small, autonomous communities far from any central governing body.
    The drug industry has undoubtedly been able to benefit from the persistent social and cultural aspects of this isolation, which has carried over to modern times. To this day decentralisation and diversification, for better or worse, are two of the nation’s most distinctive qualities, and they’ve shown to be sadly integral to the creation of settings ideal for a wide range of criminal activity.
    Illegal drug production and trafficking began in earnest in Colombia in the mid-1960s, and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta was its first foothold. Yet it did not start with cocaine but with marijuana, which was not only the favourite drug of Colombians but also the preferred drug of Pablo Escobar. And then, as now, the driving force behind the rapid development of drug-producing structures was the never-ending demand for drugs in the United