Por qué decidí boicotear las drogas

Crecí en Colombia, escuchando acerca de los capos y los miembros de los carteles de la droga que se estaban matando los unos a los otros, y a personas inocentes, para poder tener el poder y controlar las rutas para traficar drogas a Estados Unidos y Europa. También crecí escuchando acerca de cómo la policía estaba tratando de “arrestar y matar a las personas malas” con la generosa asistencia del gobierno de Estados Unidos.

Veía las noticias con mi familia y escuchaba acerca de carros bomba, secuestros, asesinatos, entrenamientos militares por parte de Estados Unidos, y misiones de inteligencia de la DEA. En mi colegio, aparte de hacer simulacros de terremotos, también nos enseñaban qué hacer si una bomba explotaba. A los quince años yo ya había sido testigo de dos secuestros. Muchos colombianos tenían familiares que habían sido asesinados, secuestrados, extorsionados, extraditados o que estaban en la cárcel. Los colombianos nos estábamos matando los unos a los otros en una guerra interna. La violencia era normal. La impunidad y el miedo eran parte de la vida diaria

En 1999, migré a Estados Unidos con parte de mi familia. La guerra contra las drogas parecía algo distante que no me podía tocar. Estaba equivocada. Mientras trabajaba como organizadora social, aprendí acerca de las pandillas en Estados Unidos y su relación con las mismas drogas que destruían a mi país.

Jóvenes de bajos recursos, la mayoría de las veces personas de color, se ven en el medio de la violencia relacionada con las guerras entre pandillas, que pelean por territorio para vender drogas. Las balaceras entre pandillas son increíblemente comunes en algunos lugares de los Estados Unidos y casi nadie afuera de las comunidades involucradas sabe al respecto, o si sabe, casi nunca le da mucha importancia. El abuso de poder y el acoso policiaco, bajo el pretexto de la lucha contra las drogas y el crimen, son un evento diario para los residentes de barrios de bajos recursos. Como en Colombia, muchas familias tienen parientes que han muero o están en la cárcel por incidentes relacionados con la droga. Muchas familias tienen parientes que son miembros de pandillas. La violencia es normal. La impunidad y el miedo son parte de la vida diaria.

Ahora vivo en México, donde los gobiernos de Estados Unidos y México han decidido librar una guerra contra las drogas, los carteles de la droga y el crimen organizado. Esta guerra ha resultado en miles de muertes y abusos a los derechos humanos. He escuchado historias de migrantes que han sido forzados a llevar drogas a los Estados Unidos. He conocido personas cuyos parientes han sido torturados, desparecidos o asesinados. Los mexicanos le tienen miedo a la policía y al ejército militar, los cuales son responsables de muchos de los abusos de derechos humanos. Muchas familias tienen parientes que han sido desaparecidos, asesinados, extorsionados o involucrados con el tráfico de drogas. La violencia es normal. La impunidad y el miedo son parte de la vida diaria.

Basándome en mis experiencias y en la realidad de estos tres países, he decidido boicotear las drogas hasta que la guerra contra las drogas termine y hasta que las drogas se legalicen. 

Estas son nueve razones por las que estoy boicoteando las drogas:

1. Es una guerra contra la gente pobre: La guerra contra las drogas es principalmente una droga contra las personas de comunidades marginalizadas, que no tienen acceso a trabajos o a la educación. Muchos de ellos terminan trabajando para los carteles y las pandillas. Estas víctimas de la circunstancias pueden ser campesinos que solo pueden ganar suficiente dinero cultivando plantas de coca, amapola, o marihuana; padres que deciden transportar drogas a otros países para poder tener dinero para alimentar a sus hijos; o adolescentes que deciden vender drogas porque no tienen oportunidades. La criminalización de las drogas es una manera de limpieza social, en donde las personas oprimidas son castigadas por tomar las oportunidades que existen fuera de la sociedad que las oprime.
   
   En lugar de concentrarnos en las situaciones que están forzando a la gente a unirse a los carteles o las pandillas, nuestra estrategia hasta el momento ha sido la de encarcelar o asesinar a estas personas. Estas muertes y castigos están justificadas por la idea de que los criminales reciben lo que merecen. Pocas personas se preguntan por qué tantas personas se unen a estos grupos en primer lugar. ¿Qué clase de apoyo necesitan estas personas para integrarse a la sociedad? ¿Es justa la infraestructura disciplinaria que castiga a las actividades relacionadas con las drogas?
   
   
2.  Es una guerra contra los jóvenes: Muchas de las personas que terminan involucrándose con las pandillas y los carteles son personas jóvenes que vienen de un contexto de violencia en donde sus estructuras familiares han sido rotas por la pobreza, la opresión y la violencia. En esta realidad los jóvenes no creen que vivirán por mucho tiempo. Los sentimientos de impotencia hacen que los jóvenes sean un blanco fácil para los carteles y las pandillas.
   
   Los carteles y las pandillas reclutan a menores de edad para transportar drogas y cometer crímenes. Los menores son menos sospechosos para las autoridades y cuando son arrestados, reciben sentencias más cortas que los adultos. Los menores de edad también son más fáciles de manipular por los adultos, cometiendo crímenes cuando los líderes de estas organizaciones se los piden.
   
   
3.  Una guerra contra el medio ambiente: La guerra contra las drogas en Colombia incluye esfuerzos para erradicar el cultivo de coca. Con la asistencia de los Estados Unidos, aviones fumigan herbicidas en bosques y áreas rurales. El herbicida Roundup, producido por Monsanto, es el herbicida más usado, y mata a cualquier planta que sea expuesta a sus componentes. La fumigación aérea de herbicidas ha tenido un impacto enorme en el medio ambiente, destruyendo la flora y fauna, y afectando la salud de las personas.
   
   Además, la fumigación aérea destruye los cultivos legales de los campesinos y causa la erosión de la tierra. Esto resulta en la perdida de salarios y soberanía alimenticia de muchas familias campesinas, al punto de que muchas de ellas tienen que abandonar sus hogares. Los indígenas también son criminalizados por sembrar cultivos sagrados y ancestrales para sus comunidades, como la hoja de coca. Según la Oficina de Washington en Latinoamérica, aproximadamente 10,000 a 20,000 indígenas son desplazados cada año en Colombia a causa de la erradicación de cultivos.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Esclavitud moderna: Los carteles de la droga en México secuestran personas para obligarlas a trabajar para ellos. Niños, migrantes o jóvenes profesionales pueden ser traficados o usados como mulas para transportar drogas. Sus familias se quedan con la angustia de nunca saber si las personas que aman están vivas o muertas.
   
   Las fuerzas de seguridad Mexicanas casi nunca investigan estas desapariciones y en muchas ocasiones hasta están involucradas con estas violaciones de derechos humanos. Según un reporte de Human Rights Watch (HRW), más de 25,000 personas han desaparecido o se han reportado como perdidas desde el 2006. Casi ninguno de estos casos ha sido adecuadamente investigado.
   
   
5. Criminalización y encarcelamiento: Los Estados Unidos encarcelan más personas que cualquier otro país del mundo, y muchas de estas personas están encarceladas por ofensas relacionadas con la droga. Según la Agencia de Estadísticas del Departamento de Justicia de Estados Unidos, en el 2011 48% de los presos en prisiones federales (94,600 personas) y 17.4% de los presos de prisiones estatales (237,000 personas) estaban pagando condenas por ofensas relacionadas con las drogas.
   
   Según el FBI, de los 1,531,251 arrestos por violaciones de leyes relacionadas con la droga en el 2011, 81.8% fueron por posesión de substancias controladas y el 18.2% por la venta o producción de drogas.
   
   El encarcelamiento afecta a las personas de color de una manera desproporcionada. Según un reporte de HRW, las personas blancas y los Afro Americanos tienen índices de consumo de drogas comparables, pero los arrestos de Afro Americanos por ofensas de droga son tres veces más altos que los de las personas blancas. Los Afro Americanos representan 28.4% de todos los arresto de Estados Unidos, pero son sólo el 13% de la población del país.
   
   Una persona que sea encontrada culpable por un delito relacionado con la droga puede tener una vida muy difícil y su familia puede ser separada. Cuando una persona es encarcelada sus familias pueden perder la estabilidad financiera que necesitan, pues tienen que sobrevivir con solo un sueldo. En algunas ocasiones los niños son mandados a hogares temporales con otras familias. Al terminar la condena en la cárcel, las personas pueden perder acceso a los programas del gobierno (como la ayuda financiera para estudiar), perder su derecho al voto, y  ser negados de muchas oportunidades de trabajo.
   
   
6. Violencia: La violencia que resulta por los esfuerzos para controlar el tráfico de drogas ilegales es devastadora. Los carteles y las organizaciones que trafican drogas tienen sus propias fuerzas de seguridad para enfrentar al gobierno y a grupos enemigos. Las guerrillas y los paramilitares colombianos usan las ganancias de sus actividades con la droga para financiar sus operaciones militares. Los gobiernos gastan millones de  dólares, que vienen de los impuestos que pagan los ciudadanos, en armas que usarán contra sus propios ciudadanos.
   
   
   
   En México la violencia se ha disparado desde el comienzo de la guerra contra las drogas. Según estadísticas del gobierno mexicano, desde el 2006, más de 47,000 personas han muerto como resultado del conflicto. Las victimas incluyen a personas de todas clases sociales y edades que pueden estar o no estar relacionadas con el tráfico de drogas. Los actores que cometen esta violencia incluyen a los carteles de la droga, el crimen organizado y a las fuerzas de seguridad mexicanas.
   
   Es difícil conseguir información precisa acerca del número de asesinatos y otros crímenes violentos asociados con las drogas en los Estados Unidos. Según un estudio hecho por el Centro para el Control de las Enfermedades, de un 5 al 25% de los homicidios de pandillas en los Estados Unidos son relacionados con las drogas. La mayoría de las víctimas son hombres jóvenes de color y la mayoría de los homicidios ocurren durante balaceras en dónde las pandillas están arreglando cuentas, cobrando deudas o defendiendo su territorio de venta de drogas. Según el Centro Nacional de Inteligencia acerca de las Drogas, las pandillas cada vez están más involucradas con el tráfico de drogas a grande escala. Esto ha resultado en un incremento de secuestros, asaltos, robos y homicidios en la región fronteriza sureste del país.
   
   La violencia relacionada con la droga en Colombia está relacionada con el conflicto entre el gobierno, los carteles, las guerrillas y los paramilitares. El tráfico de droga se ha convertido en una fuente de ingresos para la guerrilla y los paramilitares. Todos estos grupos son responsables por asesinatos, desapariciones, tortura, secuestro, y otras violaciones de derechos humanos de las que han sido víctimas miles de personas.
   
   Según el Consejo de Asuntos del Hemisferio, 5 millones de colombianos han sido desplazados internamente por la violencia asociada con el cultivo y procesamiento de coca y la guerra entre traficantes de droga y fuerzas de seguridad. Colombia tiene uno de los números más altos de desplazados internos del mundo.
   
   
7.  Una  guerra contra las personas que usan drogas: Los Estados Unidos son el país que más consume drogas en el mundo. Según Vox, los Estados Unidos tienen el 5% de la población mundial pero representan el 25% de los consumidores de drogas del mundo. La campaña del gobierno estadounidense para combatir las drogas se ha enfocado en la prohibición y en programas poco efectivos que tratan de convencer a las personas para que no consuman drogas. Los Estados Unidos necesitan campañas que tengan como prioridad la seguridad y la educación de los consumidores de drogas. La adicción a las drogas debe tratarse como una enfermedad.
   
   
8.  Recursos perdidos: Según el Reporte Alternativo sobre la Drogas a nivel Mundial, los Estados Unidos ha gastado más de un trillón de dólares haciendo cumplir leyes relacionadas con las drogas en los últimos 40 años. Anualmente Estados Unidos gasta por lo menos 15 billones de dólares por año haciendo cumplir leyes relacionadas con las drogas. El costo de encarcelar a un preso en el año fiscal del 2010, fue de 31,307 dólares, según un reporte hecho por la organización El Precio de las Prisiones.
   
   Desde el comienzo de la guerra estadounidense contra las drogas, el uso de droga ha incrementado constantemente. Las personas no han dejado de consumir drogas, aun cuando hacerlo es en contra de la ley. La criminalización de las drogas ha tenido efectos devastadores para las familias.
   
   Plan Colombia es una iniciativa de los gobiernos de Estados Unidos y México con la intención de combatir la producción y el tráfico de drogas a los Estados Unidos.
   La iniciativa incluye ayudas militares de Estados Unidos para entrenar y fortalecer al ejército Colombiano, con la idea de incrementar su capacidad para combatir los carteles de la droga y las guerrillas de izquierda.
   
   Desde el año 2000, Estados Unidos ha gastado más de 7 billones de dólares en Plan Colombia. Según un estudio de HRW, en el 2012 los Estados Unidos le dieron a Colombia aproximadamente 482 millones de dólares en ayuda, de los cuales 58% fueron designados al ejército y la policía.
   
   Plan Colombia ha resultado en un incremento de la violencia del estado y la destrucción del medio ambiente. No ha habido un cambio en el número de drogas que entran a Estados Unidos. La producción de cocaína sigue siendo un negocio muy rentable que simplemente se mudó de Colombia a México. Mientras haya demanda, la producción de cocaína continuará en Colombia o en cualquier otro país.
   
   La Iniciativa Mérida es un esfuerzo de los gobiernos mexicanos y estadounidenses para combatir el crimen organizado y los carteles de la droga. Para este propósito los Estados Unidos han asignado 2 billones de dólares para la ayuda y el entrenamiento militar de las fuerzas de seguridad mexicana. El país ha visto como su territorio se militariza. Los resultados de esta iniciativa han dejado a México con miles de víctimas de la violencia cometida por las fuerzas de seguridad mexicanas. La corrupción y la falta de cumplimiento de las reglas han resultado en violencia e impunidad. Según el Reporte del Mundo del 2013 de HRW, casi ninguno de estos abusos ha sido adecuadamente investigado. A pesar de la Iniciativa Mérida, las drogas continúan entrando a Estados Unidos.
   
   
9.  Las corporaciones son las únicas que ganan: Los únicos que se benefician con la guerra contra las drogas son las corporaciones. La industria de la guerra tiene ganancias millonarias cada vez que los Estados Unidos deciden otorgar ayudar militar a otros países, con cosas como armas y helicópteros. Las corporaciones multinacionales tienen ganancias cada vez que los campesinos y los indígenas son desplazados de sus tierras, las cuales se ponen a la venta o se vuelven disponibles para concesiones. Los canales de comunicación comerciales tienen ganancias cuando pueden sensacionalizar la violencia y cuando hacen novelas y seriados acerca de la guerra. Compañías como Monsanto se benefician de las fumigaciones aéreas que destruyen el medio ambiente en Colombia. Los centros de detención privados tienen ganancias cuando altos números de personas son encarceladas por ofensas relacionadas con la droga.
   
   Para las corporaciones, la guerra contra las drogas es una manera de tener más dinero. El sufrimiento humano y la destrucción del medio ambiente son solo daños colaterales.

El no usar drogas es un acto político

La violencia relacionada con las drogas disminuiría considerablemente si la producción y la venta de las drogas fueran regularizadas y sujetas a impuestos. Los carteles no existirían ni tendrían que competir por un mercado. Las drogas tendrían preciso fijos. Sin la guerra contra las drogas los gobiernos y sus fuerzas de seguridad no tendrían que seguir amenazando las vidas y la seguridad de sus propios ciudadanos. Sin la criminalización los gobiernos podrían usar mejor sus recursos, por ejemplo en programas sociales.

Los efectos de la guerra contra las drogas en Colombia, México y los Estados Unidos me han dejado con la única opción de boicotear las drogas. Compararlas sería como aprobar la impunidad y la violencia que hace parte de la vida de miles de personas en las Américas. Hasta el día que las drogas sean legalizadas y regularizadas, y hasta que los ciclos de miedo y violencia sean rotos, nunca compraré drogas.

Sin embargo, boicotear no es suficiente. Además de ser consumidores éticos, debemos organizar a nuestras comunidades para que las drogas sean legalizadas y para terminar la guerra contra las drogas. Nuestras comunidades y las comunidades de nuestros hermanos del sur se beneficiarán de nuestras acciones.

Con el estado actual de la industria de las drogas, la criminalización de las drogas, y la guerra contra las drogas, ¿cómo podría hacer la decisión ética de comprar drogas? Las situaciones descritas en este artículo me parecen un precio muy alto que pagar por mi entretenimiento. Boicotear las drogas es un acto político.

Why I decided to Boycott Illegal Drugs

I grew up in Colombia, hearing about cartel members and drug lords who were killing each other, and innocent people, in order to gain power and new routes for the drugs that they shipped to the United States and Europe. I also grew up hearing about the police trying to “catch and kill the bad guys” with the generous assistance of the US government. 

I would watch the news with my family and hear about car bombs, kidnappings, murders, US military trainings, and DEA intelligence. At my school, in addition to earthquake drills, we were taught what to do if a bomb exploded on campus. By the age of fifteen, I had already seen two people get kidnapped. Many Colombian families had relatives who had been killed, kidnapped, extorted, extradited, or were in jail. People were killing each other in an internal war. Violence was normal. Impunity and fear were part of everyday life.

In 1999, part of my family and I moved to the United States. The drug war seemed like something distant that could not touch me. I was wrong. While working as an organizer, I learned about US gangs and their relationship to the same drugs that had torn my country apart.

Low-income youth, usually people of color, are often caught up in the gang violence related to wars over drug turf. Shootouts are incredibly common in some parts of the United States and almost nobody, outside of these communities, knows or cares much about it. Police brutality and harassment, under the pretense of fighting drugs and crime, are a daily occurrence for residents of  low-income neighborhoods. Like Colombia, many families have relatives who are dead or in jail because of drug-related incidents. Many families have relatives involved with gangs. Violence is normal. Impunity and fear are part of everyday life.

Now I live in Mexico, where the Mexican and US governments have decided to wage a war against drugs, the cartels, and organized crime. This war has resulted in thousands of casualties and human rights abuses. I have heard stories of migrants who were forced to transport drugs to the United States. I have met people who have lost children, parents, partners, and siblings to this war. Mexicans are scared of the police and military, who are responsible for many of these human rights abuses. Many families have relatives who have been disappeared, murdered, kidnapped, extorted, or involved with the cartels. Violence is normal. Impunity and fear are part of everyday life.

Based on my experiences and the realities of these three countries, I have decided to abstain from using drugs until they are legalized and until the drug war is over. 

Below are nine reasons why I am boycotting drugs:

1. It's a war against the poor: The war against drugs is mainly a war against low-income people from marginalized communities, who do not have access to jobs or education. Many of them end up working for cartels or gangs. These victims of circumstance can be: farmers who can only make ends meet by growing coca or marihuana plants; parents who decide to transport drugs across borders in order to feed their families; or teenagers who start selling drugs because of lack of opportunity. The criminalization of drugs is a method of social cleansing, where oppressed people are punished for taking advantage of opportunities that exist outside of the society that oppresses them.

Instead of addressing the root causes that force people to join cartels or gangs, the current approach has been murder and incarceration. These deaths and harsh punishments are justified by the idea that criminals get what they deserve. Few question why so many people join these groups in the first place. What kind of support do people need in order to be integrated into society? Is the punitive infrastructure that punishes drug-related activities fair?

2. A war against the youth: Many of the people who get involved with gangs and cartels are young and come from a violent environment where families have already been broken by poverty, oppression, and violence. In these types of environments, youth do not expect to live long. Feelings of powerlessness make youth an easy target for gangs and cartels.

Cartels and gangs recruit minors to transport drugs and to commit crimes. They are less suspicious to authorities and when they are caught, they receive lower sentences than adults. Minors are more susceptible to manipulation from adults, and may be used to commit violent acts at the behest of leaders. In many cases, cartels and gangs have been known to traffic and enslave minors. 

3. A war against the environment: The drug war in Colombia includes efforts to eradicate coca crops. With the assistance of the United States, airplanes spray herbicides on forests and in rural areas. The most commonly used herbicide is Monsanto’s Roundup, which kills any plant exposed to it. The aerial spraying of herbicides has had a huge impact on the environment, destroying Colombia’s biodiversity, and negatively affecting human health.

In addition, aerial spraying destroys farmers’ legitimate crops and causes soil infertility. This causes a loss of income and food sovereignty, and eventually, the displacement of many farm worker families. Indigenous people are also criminalized for growing their sacred and ancestral crops. According to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), an average of 10,000 to 20,000 indigenous people are displaced each year in Colombia due to crop eradication. 

4. Modern day slavery: Mexican drug cartels kidnap people and force them to work. Children, migrants, or young professionals may be trafficked or used as mules to transport drugs. Their relatives are left with uncertainty, never knowing if their loved ones are alive or dead.

Mexican security forces are often involved with and seldom investigate disappearances. According to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, more than 25,000 people have disappeared or have been reported missing since 2006. Almost none of these abuses have been adequately investigated.

5. Criminalization and imprisonment: The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, and many people are behind bars for drug-related offenses. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the Department of Justice, in 2011, 48% of the inmates in federal prisons (94,600 people) and 17.4% of the inmates in state prisons (237,000 people) were serving time for drug-related offenses. 

According to the FBI, of the 1,531,251 arrests for drug law violations in 2011, 81.8% were for possession of a controlled substance and 18.2% were for the sale or manufacturing of a drug.

Arrest and imprisonment overwhelmingly affect people of color. According to HRW, whites and African Americans have comparable rates of drug use, but African American men are arrested for drug offenses at three times the rate of white men. African Americans represent 28.4% of all arrests, but account for only 13% of the US population.

After a drug conviction, families may be separated and life can be hard. When someone is incarcerated, many families will not have financial stability, relying on the income of only one parent. In some circumstances children will be placed in foster care. Individuals who have finished a jail sentence can lose access to government programs (including federal college financial aid), voting rights, and be restricted from applying to certain jobs.

For information about drug-related incarceration in Colombia and Mexico, read this WOLA study.

6. Violence: The violence perpetrated to control the illegal drug trade is devastating. Cartels and drug trafficking organizations have their own security forces to fight the government and rival groups. Colombian guerrillas and paramilitaries use the profits from their drug business to finance their military operations. Governments spend millions of taxpayer dollars on weapons used against their own citizens.

In Mexico, violence has skyrocketed since the beginning of the drug war. According to statistics from the Mexican government,  more than 47,000 people have died as a result of the conflict since 2006. Victims include people from all walks of life, who may or may not have been involved with the drug trade. Perpetrators include cartels, organized crime, and Mexican security forces.

It is hard to get accurate information about the number of drug-related murders in the United States. A study by the Center for Disease Control says that 5% to 25% of gang homicides in US cities are drug-related. Most of the victims are young males of color and most homicides take place during shootouts when gangs are settling their disputes, enforcing drug debts, or defending turf. According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, gangs are increasingly becoming more involved with large-scale drug trafficking, resulting in an increase of kidnappings, assaults, robberies, and homicides along the US Southwest border.

Drug-related violence in Colombia involves the internal conflict between the government, cartels, organized crime, guerrillas, and paramilitaries. Drug trafficking has helped to provide earnings for the guerrillas and paramilitaries. All of these groups are responsible for the murder, disappearance, torture, and human rights violations of thousands of people.

According to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 5 million Colombians have been internally displaced because of the violence associated with coca cultivation and processing, and the war between drug traffickers and security forces. Colombia is one of the countries with the highest number of internally displaced people in the world.

7. Prohibition doesn't work: The United States is the number one consumer of illegal drugs in the world. According to Vox, the United States makes up 5% of the global population, yet accounts for over 25% of global demand for illicit drugs. The US government’s campaign to combat drugs has focused on prohibition and unsuccessful programs that try to discourage people from using drugs. The United States needs campaigns that prioritize safety and education for drug users, not criminalization and incarceration. Drug addictions need to be treated as a health issue.

8. Wasted resources:  According to the Alternative World Drug Report, the United States has spent more than 1 trillion dollars enforcing drug laws over the past 40 years. Annually, the United States spends at least 15 billion dollars a year on drug law enforcement. Meanwhile, the cost of incarcerating one inmate in the fiscal year of 2010 was 31,307 dollars, according to a report by the organization A Price of Prisons.

Since the beginning of the US government's War on Drugs, drug use has increased steadily. People have not stopped using drugs, even when doing so is against the law. The criminalization of drugs has had devastating consequences for US families.

Plan Colombia is an initiative led by the US and Colombian governments with the purpose of combating drug manufacturing and smuggling to the United States. The plan includes US military initiatives to train, strengthen, and aid Colombia's military, increasing their power to fight drug cartels and left-wing guerrilla groups.

Since the year 2000, the United States has spent more than 7 billion dollars on Plan Colombia. According to a study by HRW, in 2012 the United States provided Colombia with approximately 482 million dollars in aid, 58% of which went to the military and police.

Plan Colombia has resulted in a disgraceful increase of state violence and environmental degradation. There has not been a decrease in the number of drugs entering the United States. Cocaine is still a profitable business that has moved many of its operations from Colombia to Mexico. As long as there is a demand, production will take place whether in Colombia or in another country.

The Merida Initiative is an effort led by the US and Mexican governments. Its objective is to combat organized crime and drug cartels. For this purpose, the United States has allocated 2 billion dollars for military aid and the training of the Mexican security forces. The country has seen an increasing militarization of its territory. The results of this initiative have devastated Mexico with thousands of victims of violence at the hands of Mexican security forces. Corruption and lack of oversight have resulted in violence and impunity. According to HRW’s 2013 World Report, almost none of these abuses have been adequately investigated. Despite the Merida Initiative, drugs continue to enter the United States. 

9. Corporations are the only winners: The only winners of the drug war are corporations. The war industry profits every time that the United States grants other countries military aid such as weapons and helicopters.  Multinational corporations profit every time that campesinos and indigenous people are displaced from their lands, which may become available for concessions or for purchase. Commercial media outlets profit when they sensationalize violence and make soap operas about the war. Companies like Monsanto profit from the destructive aerial fumigations in Colombia. Private detention facilities profit when high numbers of people are incarcerated for drug-related offenses. 

For corporations, the drug war is a way to make money. Human casualties and environmental degradation are merely collateral damage. 

Not using illegal drugs is a political act

Drug-related violence would definitely decrease if drug manufacturing and production were regulated and taxed. Cartels would no longer exist nor would they violently compete for a market. Drugs could be sold in stores at set prices. Without the drug war, governments and their security forces would no longer threaten the life and safety of their own citizens. Without criminalization, governments could use their resources for social programs. 

The effects of the drug wars of Colombia, Mexico, and the United States have left me with no other option than to boycott drugs. Buying them is condoning the impunity and violence that affects the lives of so many people in the Americas. Until drugs are legalized and regulated, and the cycle of fear and violence is broken, I will never buy. 

Yet, merely boycotting drugs is not enough. In addition to being ethical consumers, we must organize our communities to legalize drugs and to end the drug war. Our communities and the communities of our brothers and sisters in the South will be grateful. 

With the current state of the drug industry, the criminalization of drugs, and the drug war, how could I possibly make the ethical decision to buy drugs? The situations described above seem like a high price to pay for my entertainment.

Live from the Caravan for Peace: Mexican Drug War Victims Travel The US and Call for Policy Change

By Alissa Escarce, former Witness for Peace Delegate

Maria Trujillo Herrera  from Mexico gives testimony
about her four disappeared sons

For the past two weeks two white buses, each emblazoned with red block letters spelling “Caravan for Peace,“ have been rolling through the Southwestern desert.  This Caravan, the latest from Mexico’s Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, is led by Javier Sicilia, “el poeta,” who left literature for activism following his son’s murder at the hands of drug war violence.  After nearly a year and a half of traveling around Mexico, sharing stories and pain with thousands, and speaking truth to the Mexican government, Sicilia and the family members of nineteen other innocent drug war victims have crossed the border to the U.S.

They have come in the name of the 70,000 murdered and 15,000 disappeared since Mexico adopted a militarized approach to combating drug trafficking. They are here to address the nation that pushed the Mexican government to initiate the drug war; that both consumes and prohibits drugs, setting the conditions that have allowed drug cartels to thrive; that launders the profits of drug sales and extortions; that sells 90% of the firearms used by drug cartels in barely regulated markets; that through the Merida Initiative has spent billions on arming and training Mexico’s corrupt, often murderous military, rather than funding programs to alleviate the inequities at the root of much crime; and that has deported hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens to dangerous border towns

I, an American citizen who has witnessed the hypocrisy of the War on Drugs on both sides of the border, have joined them on the bus.

I joined the Caravan for Peace in Los Angeles, my hometown and the Caravan’s second stop.  I had been looking forward to the event since I saw it announced, in April, in a Mexican newspaper.  I was living in Oaxaca at the time, working with the binational migrant workers’ rights law center Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (Center for Migrants’ Rights, or CDM), an organization that works in communities that experience a lot of migration.  It was the longest of several periods I had spent in Mexico since 2007, since the time that President Felipe Calderon first declared war on the drug cartels and that the U.S. committed to supporting it through the Merida Initiative.

Back in 2007, the drug war was barely on my radar, and my visit to Mexico gave me little reason to notice it.  By the time I returned in 2011, though, insecurity had reached such extremes that it was impossible to ignore.  I reflected on this change during the Caravan demonstration in Austin, Texas, where I ran into a former colleague from CDM.  We had worked together in 2008 in the city of Zacatecas, which was, at the time, relatively unaffected by drug war violence. This colleague left Zacatecas for Austin about a year ago, after months of seeing neighbors’ funeral notices, hearing about shoot-outs in the parks where her toddler liked to ride her tricycle, and encountering hooded men armed with machine guns and grenades on her way home from her second daughter’s birth.

Caravaneros line up to board the Caravan for Peace bus

By the spring of 2011, CDM’s main office had to relocate to Mexico City following a string of strange threats. Our security protocol became the central topic of most staff meetings, and we stopped working in many regions altogether.  Clients and colleagues alike suffered trauma.  Communities became suspicious of outsiders.  Like many human rights defenders working in Mexico, some of us began to wonder whether this conflict would make our work so difficult that we might be forced to shut down.

I am on the bus, then, not because of personal tragedy, but because of a commitment to social justice in both Mexico and the United States. I have seen that the drug war is not only destroying innocent lives at an astonishing pace, but also paralyzing movements and civil organizations that work for justice of every kind.  I am outraged by the ugly reality of policies carried out in my name, and so I believe that the caravaneros’ cause, as we move across my country, is also my own.

Those of us on the bus come from different backgrounds, and are here for a range of reasons.  Most have experienced the spike in violence in Mexico, and have come “to conquer injustice,” in one young man’s words, and to promote peace.  Many have lost children or brothers or husbands in the conflict, and have come to share their stories in the hopes that their histories will not be repeated.  Those whose loved ones have been “disappeared,” but perhaps not killed, harbor hopes of finding them.

The Movement for Peace with Justice has become a space of solidarity and hope for many who feel as one bereaved mother, who explained, “my heart dried up with my son, and in my pain I feel alone… but this movement made me feel less alone, as I met other mothers who had experienced the same thing.”  We hope to expand that space of solidarity to include compassionate U.S. citizens, whose government’s policies have planted the seeds that have led to this violence.  “To people in the United States, our pain feels far removed,” says a man whose brothers have disappeared.  But the anguish of realizing a sister has been tortured, or of receiving a nephew’s corpse, should translate beyond physical and cultural borders.  By sharing these personal stories of tragedy, the Caravan hopes to open serious discussions about U.S. policy.

Members of the Movement for Peace with Justice and
Dignity, including Javier Sicilia (right), give testimony at
one of the Caravan's stops

The buses, as well as the public events organized in city after city, are primarily places for storytelling, and the stories told make clear why these questions of policy are so urgent.  Rafael, who has joined the caravan with his mother and brother, tells me about the changes that unfolded in his community following Calderon’s first drug war campaign.  Rafael and his family live in a rural farming community in the state of Michoacán, where in 2006 Calderon attacked the Familia Michoacán cartel, capturing its leaders and removing its members from political posts.  It was as power dynamics between cartels began to shift in Michoacán, and as headless organizations broke down into warring factions, that violence in Michoacán was unleashed.  “The cartels started to terrorize the civilian population, so that people wouldn’t dare report them to the government,” his brother Carlos adds.  “They built fear as a protective barrier.” Four years later, four of Carlos and Rafael’s brothers, door-to-door metal salesmen, have disappeared.  During that time, the influx of assault weapons into Michoacán was so great the price dropped from around $2000, to $300.

To me, the most powerful event has been an evening vigil held a few days ago in Brownsville, Texas.  We stood in a circle with locals, candles shimmering in our hands, steps from the tall rusted fence that divides our two nations.  After a moment of silence and a few speeches on politics, Margarita, a warm woman I knew by smile and her tendency to call all of us “Beautiful!,” began to describe the struggle that had brought her to the caravan.  Her daughter, the wife of an officer in the Mexican military, disappeared in Oaxaca over a year ago.  Margarita had gone from authority to authority, from the government to the military to private investigators, encountering wall after impenetrable bureaucratic wall.  After months of searching and confronting criminal organizations, she was finally presented with a decapitated, decomposing body.  She was told that it belonged to her daughter, a fact that DNA testing initially confirmed.  Later, presented with a head, she requested more DNA testing—which resulted inconclusive, positive one time, negative the next.  She was provided with gory details of her daughter’s last days.  “She was raped every day!” she screamed, her voice ripping.  “She was shown the bodies decomposing in the mass grave where she was soon going to be thrown!  They told me of her pleas, how she begged them ‘please, please don’t kill me.’” To this day, Margarita cannot be sure where her daughter’s body was laid to rest.  “But I will keep fighting, even if it kills me!” she finished.  Behind her, a crowd of mothers held her, shaking, faces shining with tears and rage.

The horror of these stories is difficult to absorb, and they are the stories of many tens of thousands of Mexicans—and, I’m learning, a stunning number of U.S. citizens and residents, who have come to tell stories of pain that echo those of the caravaneros.  My seatmate on the bus, for example, is a U.S. citizen born in Mexico.  Her brother, also a U.S. citizen, was a truck driver for a large American company.  He disappeared about a year ago while driving a truck across the border.  She often babysits her brother’s U.S.-born son, and has found that eleven-year-old boy cannot sleep. “I’m afraid,” he tells her. Locals at our many stops come to tell of family members assassinated following deportation, of painful decisions to seek asylum in the U.S., of being limited to choosing between drug violence in Mexico and anti-immigrant violence in the U.S.  Even those with no ties to Mexico have found common ground with the movement, drawing connections to the scourge of mass incarceration in the black community, and with the lack of funding for treating addiction.  Many kinds of pain are bringing people together.

That the United States has had a part in creating the conditions for so much inhumanity troubles me deeply.  Some of our challengers on this side of the border say that because the U.S. has provided Mexico with military aid, that we have done our part, and that we should just throw up our hands. But story after story suggests that militarization has only escalated the horror, and if we are sincere in our wish to halt horrific human rights violations, we must demand a fundamental shift in our drug and foreign policies.

In quieter moments, the Caravan is deeply spiritual, drawing on Catholic and Aztec and Buddhist rituals, on poetry and folk songs. Sicilia has insisted that victims’ pain not lead them to hate, and discussions of love for our American hosts are frequent.  A few days ago, as our hosts in New Mexico closed a ceremony, they said a prayer I wish my whole country could have witnessed.  An older woman, dressed in traditional clothes, raised her arms in the air and shouted, “To everyone who is rotting Mexico, including politicians on both sides of the border, may their conscience awaken.  Let’s send them love!”  The crowd flung its arms towards the sky.

On Monday morning we left Texas for Mississippi.   As we crossed the Texas border, one of my bus mates commented that this would be our true departure from what is both historically and culturally Mexican territory.  The further we go from Mexico, the more we will need your support.

We need the support of every person of conscience, around the world and especially in the United States.   If you can, join us at an event in a city near you. Join us in Washington, DC on September 12th, and invite five of your friends.  We need everyone to be there.

If you want to learn about these issues from those most affected by them, join Witness for Peace in Mexico City this September 22nd through the 30th for its first ever Drug War delegation! I participated in a Witness for Peace delegation to Mexico last year, and couldn't recommend it more highly. For more information go to www.witnessforpeace.org