The peace deal in Colombia has affected its cocaine industry

Subject: IR

Sec: Security issues

Context:

Domestic and foreign shifts in the global drug industry have devastated many poor Colombians whose livelihoods are tied to cocaine.

More about News:

For decades, one industry has sustained the small, remote Colombian village of Cano Cabra: cocaine.
Those who live in this community in the central part of the country rise early nearly every morning to pick coca leaf, scraping brittle branches, sometimes until their hands bleed. Later, they mix the leaves with gasoline and other chemicals to make chalky white bricks of coca paste.
The drug traffickers who buy the coca paste and turn it into cocaine stopped showing up. Suddenly, people who were already poor had no income.
Coca is the only source of income.
Colombia, the global nexus of the cocaine industry, where Pablo Escobar became the world’s best-known criminal, and which still produces more of the drug than any other nation, is facing tectonic shifts as a result of domestic and global forces that are reshaping the drug industry.

FARC Peace Deal:

It refers to the agreement reached between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to end decades of conflict. It is a significant milestone in Colombia’s efforts to achieve lasting peace and stability.
FARC is a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group founded in 1964 that waged an armed struggle against the Colombian government for over five decades.
The conflict resulted in over 220,000 deaths and the displacement of millions of people, making it one of the longest-running conflicts in Latin America.
A peace deal was signed on November 24, 2016, and subsequently ratified by the Colombian Congress.

How does the FARC peace deal impact Columbia?

The upending of the cocaine industry is, in part, an unintended consequence of a landmark peace deal eight years ago with the country’s largest armed group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, that ended one phase of a conflict that has lasted decades.
The leftist group financed its war largely through cocaine and relied on thousands of farmers to provide the bright green coca plant — the drug’s main ingredient.
But once the FARC exited the cocaine industry, it was replaced by smaller criminal groups pursuing a new economic model.
Limiting their operations to border regions where it is easier to move drugs out of the country.

Implications on India:

Changes in the Colombian cocaine industry may alter global drug trafficking routes.
India, as part of the global drug trade network, could see changes in the routes used to smuggle cocaine into the country.
Increased cocaine production globally could lead to a higher availability of the drug in India.
This could result in an increase in drug trafficking activities within the country visible in increased seizures in major cities.
Higher availability of cocaine could lead to an increase in drug abuse cases in India.