For their latest story in an ongoing documentary segment called “Fashion Week Internationale,” Vice takes to the streets of the worlds big-booty and cocaine capital, Colombia. Read more »
According to Reuters and others, the U.S. government is stepping up its cocaine eradication efforts in Colombia—HA! Yet, somehow, despite all the aid sent ($6 billion in the last 11 years), military assistance, and intelligence, the South American country still manages to be the world’s leading supplier, just like Afghanistan is for heroin. How is that wherever we deploy the most anti-drug assets, the more drugs there are? Must be a coincidence or something.
A Boeing 737 crashed after reportedly getting struck by lighting while landing at an airport on a Colombian island Monday. The aircraft broke into three pieces as it skidded down the runway and amazingly, only 1 of the 125 passengers died. (Photo: Richard Garcia/AP)
You know the World Cup has reached a fever pitch when even drug dealers are getting in on the buzz. A replica World Cup trophy molded from 24 lbs of cocaine was seized at Bogota airport in Colombia. The sculpted coke was bound for Spain. Illicit drug smuggling statuette or victorious omen? Paul the Octopus is feeling it too.
Maybe the War on Drugs is working? According to a study by the United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime, Colombia only produced 390 metric tons of cocaine in 2009 compared to 430 tons in 2008. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before the coke trade is all but eradicated. |Business Week|
Blu Puts Bogotá on Blast
Blu continues covering Bogotá with sobering street art. Following his cutting commentary on cocaine, the Italian wall animator painted this machine gun, turning Colombians into cadavers in the government’s pursuit of “libertad y orden,” or “liberty and order.”
Photo by Hey Presidente
While a general consensus is building in the United States to legalize weed, the cocaine capital of the world, Colombia, is moving in the opposite direction. The President of the South American country “wants to ban the personal use of cocaine, marijuana, and ecstasy,” despite a “1994 Constitutional Court ruling that said the prohibition of drug use violated the right to the “free development of personality” set forth in Colombia’s Constitution.” |CSM|
To show New Yorkers that their country has more to offer than just kidnappings and drug cartels, a consortium of Colombian interests are organizing the distribution of 100,000 “fresh cut” flowers to the public next week. Street teams will hand out roses and carnations by the thousands to the public at Penn Station, Grand Central, Times Square, and on Wall Street to promote a collaborative Land of Flowers campaign that aims to promote the South American nation’s booming floral industry. Apparently, Americans aren’t just buying their coke, but their fresh cut flowers too with Colombia exporting $1 billion worth to the U.S. in 2007.
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