Columbia and the war on drugs

[Origanalist]

Colombians Tired of US Planes Dumping Tons of Monsanto’s Roundup on Them to Fight the Drug War


By Matt Agorist on May 6, 2015

America’s immoral and asinine policy of the War on Drugs has perpetuated the aerial spraying of Monsanto’s Roundup over rural areas of Colombia since 1994.

http://tftppull.freethoughtllc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/monsanto-columbian-drug-war.jpg

For over two decades now, US planes have been dumping tons of pesticides over Colombian coca fields.

Originally the Colombian government wholeheartedly supported the ridiculous notion of mass killing all vegetation in attempt to cull the drug trade. However, it is no longer a secret that the health effects of long-term exposure to glyphosate are less than desirable.

Just last month, the World Health Organization was forced to admit that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

The recent acceptance by the mainstream that Monsanto’s Roundup causes a slew of negative health effects has sparked fear and infighting among the Colombian government.

According to the AFP,

Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria said last week that Colombia should “immediately suspend” spraying — a move vehemently opposed by Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon, who said it would “give criminals the upper hand.”
The row erupted just as US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid a visit to Colombia, which the United States sees as one of its closest allies in the region.
The politicians who are fear-mongering about stopping the program are likely scared of losing the hundreds of millions in funds received annually from the US to combat the cultivation of this plant.

Daniel Mejia, the head of Colombia’s Center for Research on Security and Drugs explained why they are worried about the program. “We carried out a study that showed fumigating caused dermatological and respiratory problems and provoked miscarriages,” he said.

Even if dumping massive amount of carcinogenic pesticides from airplanes was a good idea, it’s not effective. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, this program has aided Colombia in reducing its coca fields from more than 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres) in 2001 to 48,000 hectares in 2013. However, they conveniently left out the increase seen last year.

continued...


Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/colombians-tired-planes-dumping-tons-monsantos-roundup-fight-drug-war/#Ksq0vaf0JdVMkrX7.99

[jj-]

Colombia

[orenbus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw2CrY9Igs

[asurfaholic]

Very interesting to find this article posted. Just yesterday, my neighbor, who is Colombian, told us that they just found out that her ex husband who stayed behind in columbia was murdered by guerrillas. I guess they are the Colombian cartel? No idea, but it had something to do with them wanting to take the land for themselves, and they also knew that they had 2 sons, and they would want to come back to defend the land - so they left a note by the body saying "2 left."

Very crazy, and heartbreaking to hear her tell me of this turn of events.

[Origanalist]

Colombia

Yes, thank you.

[Zippyjuan]

For over two decades now, US planes have been dumping tons of pesticides over Colombian coca fields.


Even if dumping massive amount of carcinogenic pesticides from airplanes was a good idea, it’s not effective. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, this program has aided Colombia in reducing its coca fields from more than 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres) in 2001 to 48,000 hectares in 2013. However, they conveniently left out the increase seen last year.

Herbicides- not pesticides. They want to kill plants- not bugs.

Article from 2007:


The spraying, which began in force in southern Colombia in late 2000, has wiped out huge, industrial-sized fields of coca. Paired with an intensive American-backed effort to modernize Colombia's armed forces, the program — called Plan Colombia — has also pushed back Marxist rebels that depend on the drug trade to finance their long war against the state, American policy makers contend.

"I think Plan Colombia has been extraordinarily valuable," said David Murray, a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). "I believe, amongst other things, it's helped stabilize and save an emerging democracy that is now living under the rule of law."

But Plan Colombia, which has cost $5.4 billion, most of it to bankroll fumigation and modernize Colombia's army, has done little to erode the flow of cocaine into the United States. In Colombia, coca has not been wiped out, just spread out — redistributed to smaller, harder-to-reach plots, spread out across virtually every state, in a country that is twice the size of France.

The fact is, virtually as much coca is growing in Colombia as was cultivated at the start of the aerial fumigation program in 2000, American statistics show.

And United Nations data shows that while there has been success at eradicating coca across the main coca growing countries in the South American Andes — Colombia, Bolivia and Peru -– the region still produces more than enough cocaine to satisfy demand in the United States and Europe.

"Eradication has fallen flat on its face," said Myles Frechette, who was Washington's ambassador to Colombia in the late 1990's. "We've discovered, and it's right in the reports by the State Department and ONDCP, that after five years of Plan Colombia, the amount of acreage under cultivation for coca is the same as it was five years ago."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9298685

[Origanalist]

My point was the program is a utter failure as presented, your point is?