Every gram of cocaine bought finances the war and the suffering of Colombians, thinks the freelance researcher and writer Samuli Arkko.
He doesn’t mince his words. The bloodlines that start deep in the jungle lead to the west, to nightclub toilets and homes.
– A Finnish cocaine user accepts war, killing, rape, mutilation and destruction.
Arkko lived in Colombia for about two years and has personally witnessed the plight of the locals at the foot of the brutal drug war.
He had time to be in the country for many months before he noticed that people don’t really talk about the subject.
– It is related to the fear of death. You never know what someone will hear and how you will react to what you hear.
The decades-long drug war became more complicated in 2016 when Colombia signed a disarmament agreement with the FARC guerrilla group, which controlled numerous coca-producing areas.
The agreement changed the situation radically: The competition for cocaine was freed up and blossomed bloodier than before, when numerous criminal groups began to pursue the cocaine crown with violence. At the same time, the state is waging a war against drugs and cartels.
Ordinary Colombians have been caught in the crossfire of the drug war.
In some areas, the liberation of competition has meant pure enslavement for residents and farmers, says Arkko. And when the only economic form is the cultivation of an illegal plant, there is no getting rid of it.
– If you quit, what will you do for a living?
A sacred plant as a victim of the drug war
The snake called the cocaine war has two heads, because the war is being waged for the dominance of cocaine and against cocaine at the same time.
Both cause destruction and suffering. Land mines have been used in the war against drugs, among other things.
– How do you move in forests and fields when there are mines? Not to mention the poisons sprayed from the air on illegal farms that end up in plants, water bodies, animals and people.
According to Arko, something else valuable has been left behind by the drug war: the sacred plant of the indigenous peoples, coca.
He wrote a non-fiction book in Spanish on the subject, Coca: Estigma, abuso, guerra. The book was published in the summer, and it has not been translated into Finnish.
Coca is a bush plant that originates from the Andes. Coca leaves contain 14 alkaloids, one of which is cocaine.
There is definitely a difference between coca and cocaine. Coca is a natural medicinal plant, while cocaine is a medicinal and narcotic substance isolated from coca leaves. Cocaine is extracted from the leaves with the help of chemical substances.
Koka leaves contain a lot of nutrients, minerals and vitamins, which are otherwise not available in the mountain region.
– That’s why any white-faced person who goes to Peru, for example, might see free coca leaves in the hotel. They help digestion, and in the mountains, coca makes it easier to adapt to the high altitude.
Coca is a mild stimulant, the effects of which some compare to coffee. The World Health Organization has stated that using coca leaf does not cause health problems (The Guardian).
However, the UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs prohibits coca as well as cocaine. The exception to the rule is Bolivia. In 2013, the country received a dispensation from the UN, which allows the chewing of coca leaves.
Because of the war on drugs, the difference between coca and cocaine has become blurred. A recent example of this misunderstanding can be found in Finland.
A year ago, a surprise was born when a Peruvian substitute teacher brought coca leaves to the Spanish class for the students to smell and taste. According to Ilta-Sanom the parents were shocked and later the police investigate the matter as a drug crime.
The parents may have thought that the foreign teacher gave the children drugs.
– Although, on the contrary, that wise person tried to civilize the Finns by giving them perhaps the most nutritious and versatile medicinal plant in the world. As a writer, I could not come up with a better example of the ignorance of Caucasians, says Arkko.
The war continues, the cocaine business only gets stronger
According to Samuli Arko, the stronger the attacks on the original sources of cocaine, the stronger the drug economy has grown.
The paradox is partly due to the fact that the United States, which has waged the most intense drug war, has financed the police forces and armies of the producing countries with billions of dollars.
However, many police and army employees are involved in the cocaine business, says Arkko. The money intended to fight the drug economy also ends up with the administrators and protectors of the drug economy.
– This is how it still works. If billions and billions are pushed to destroy something, but it only gets stronger, there must be something rotten in it.
Another factor that sustains war is demand. The craving for cocaine has increased in Western countries, and in recent years clearly also in Finland. Cocaine replaced Finns’ favorite stimulant, amphetamine, in Helsinki 2022.
In Sweden, the debate about the responsibility of recreational drug users as perpetuators of gang violence is heated. The subject has also been raised in Finland.
Taken in different EU countries based on samples more than half of Europe’s cocaine comes from Colombia and 90 percent from South America.
The situation in South America could be very different without western recreational cocaine users, Samuli Arkko believes.
He doesn’t mince his words again.
– The background of the craving for cocaine is the problems of the Western mentality: the decadence of the lifestyle, superficiality and selfishness, some kind of lack of spirituality.
The effect of a cocaine dose lasts tens of minutes. The drug war has continued in Colombia for half a century.
The docent of pharmacology at the University of Eastern Finland has also been interviewed for the story Markus Storvik.