| The Drug Scene |
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| Written by Matt Landau |
| Saturday, 22 May 2010 19:05 |
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I remember a friend once telling me about how he used to buy drugs in New York City. “I’d call this number, give them a password, and soon enough,” he said, “a delivery guy would show up at my door with like fifteen different types of weed.” I envisioned this man as a house-call doctor, the astute kind they used in the olden days with a white coat and a briefcase-like box of medicine, until I found out they were usually poorly dressed undergrad students at NYU and more often than not, stoned. It’s not difficult for those who haven’t been there to imagine Colombia as a culture revolving around drugs. And it was sitting in a restaurant in Cartagena when my visiting friend from the US misinterpreted a Lebanese tobacco pipe for a marijuana bong. “I didn’t know the drug rules were so relaxed here,” he said. “Hey, how much do you think one of those costs?” Like, I imagine, a number of foreigners, Dan saw Colombia as a drug wonderland where marijuana grows on street shrubs and paper sacks of cocaine sit alongside supermarket flour. And in this sense, it can be a bit of a let down to find that most of civilized Colombia is no more drug-oriented than your typical cities in the US. This analogy runs parallel to a time in Bogota when I met a duo of bilingual teenagers in the drug store. They had started the conversation by practicing the basics, “hello,” “how are you?” and our discussion somehow made its way to celebrities in the USA. “You say you from New York. Please tell me, do you know the Puff Daddy?” “Yes,” another one of them added. “Do you make friends with the Michael Jordan or the Puff Daddy?” I remember it so vividly because I felt expected to relate closely to one of these two celebrities, as if they were political parties or an argument on abortion. I told them I didn’t know either but if it was any consolation, that one time I shared an elevator with Spike Lee. The flipside was, living in Spain, when I’d be at a wine party or in the courtyard at school and get scolded for the belligerent actions of my government. “Well you’re the one who started the war,” they’d say, or “why the hell did you raise the tax on DVDs?” and I’d recline there thinking to myself, wait, did I do that? Coming to Colombia via Panama, this was nothing new to me. Consumers of American pop culture outside of the US inevitably think of my country as a celebrity-laden paradise: one where it’s not uncommon to see the likes of Barrack Obama and Cher sharing milkshakes on the street. Foreigners always interpreted my country as insulting when it came to politics, prolific in the arena of sports stars, and industrious in production of everything that was unhealthy and thus utterly delicious. These are, perhaps, similar to the misconceptions that contain Colombia. The truth is that while Colombia is formally the world’s largest exporter of cocaine, the industry is not one that is out in the open or even necessarily accepted in most regards. Not unlike bullies or bumblebees, it’s an industry that generally won’t bother you unless provoked. If you’re on vacation and trying to score drugs down a back alley, expect the same sketchy circumstances as you would at home. Colombia has this unfortunate reputation among foreigners: rebel-filled jungles, Pablo Escobar, uncivilized civilizations. Most of Colombia’s drug problems are like venomous snakes – harmless unless goaded – in fact, most of this activity takes place in the far reaches of the country where tourists would never stray. |
