Lehe: Cocaine users support thuggish violence in Colombia

In August, I went on a month-long tour of Colombia. Whenever I tell people about my trip, they ask if I went there to do cocaine. The answer is no. I went to Colombia so that I could bring it up in conversation later and seem awesome. Today I would like to have one of those conversations with you. We will be talking about why doing cocaine is uncool.

In the center of Medellin, Colombia’s second-biggest city, lies the classiest park I’ve ever seen. The park has exhibits to teach kids about science. A music building is open for musicians to practice. Children splash around in water jets, enjoying themselves to an unrealistic degree — like in a ’90s Coca-Cola commercial when the hydrant bursts.

At the park’s center stands an inconspicuous bamboo patch. As I strolled closer to the bamboo, a flash of movement revealed that it was full of camouflaged police holding assault rifles. I struck up a conversation with one. After talking a minute, I noticed he had a bandolier of grenades across his chest. Then I looked down at this gun. He was holding a grenade launcher. An actual grenade launcher. The kind that launches grenades.

Although I’d read about Colombia’s history of violence, meeting a guy my own age strapped with 10 grenades and camouflaged in a children’s park brought home how real the danger is for everyday Colombians. And while politics is the match that lights the fire of violence, narcotics trafficking is the kerosene that keeps it burning. Drugs, especially cocaine, are why Colombian cops at the park look like they’re on the set of “Shakira vs. Predator.”

One of the ironies of our enlightened, Obama-era college culture is that some of the same trend-setters who buy Fair Trade coffee also buy cocaine, while some of the same peasants who benefit from Fair Trade coffee suffer the most from the cocaine trade. Why is consumer consciousness moot for illegal purchases? Why do the savvy shoppers who boycott Taco Bell for exploiting tomato pickers also patronize the bosses that exploit coca farmers?

It has been 19 years since Chuck Norris acted in “Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection.” Maybe today no one knows what drug violence means in Colombia. So, here is a sample of what I learned while hostel-hopping: On one side are leftist guerrillas, carrying out an ongoing war against the Colombian government. The guerillas conscript teenagers, leave landmines in villages, kidnap and ransom wealthy people, kill dissidents and set off rockets — which they build themselves and don’t know how to aim — in dense urban areas.

Opposing the guerillas are the “paras,” private paramilitaries. Although founded to protect rural folk from left-wing terrorism, the paras have come to perpetrate their own, ultra-right-wing brand of terrorism. They hold witch hunts, accusing everyone in a village of supporting leftists. Then, like a modern Spanish Inquisition, they chop up suspected men alive with chainsaws and commit unprintable horrors against women.

For the last six years, though, a refreshing peace has prevailed, thanks to a president named Alvaro Uribe who takes a hard line against violence. Most of Colombia is now as safe as Peru or Ecuador, and the country is even starting to enjoy those countries’ levels of tourism — life-sustaining commerce is impossible without peace. But the peace is fragile. The guerillas and the paras are still out there, holding out for a comeback.

Colombia’s future has moral implications for us kids, because, while the guerillas and the paras claim a political raison d’etre, they have a modus operandi based on extorting money from drug traffickers. With no drug money to skim, though, neither side could finance their arsenals or the tens of thousands of soldiers they employ.

So, if you indulge in cocaine, consider the money you pay. Part of the money will end up in the hands of sweaty men with mustaches — yes, these men actually have pit stains and mustaches — who earn their keep making others miserable. You are on the bad guy’s team, and snubbing Wal-Mart for a lifetime won’t change it.

Even the abstemious can protect the peace, though, with a tool always at arm’s length: the power to define what’s cool. The quest for coolness drives people to use Linux, eat organic, watch the British version of “The Office” and backpack around underrated countries that everyone mistakes as dangerous. We all want to seem awesome in conversation.

For peace’s sake, then, let’s make cocaine uncool. If someone at a party mentions doing cocaine, don’t chastise; don’t lecture; don’t tell anyone about your anti-drug. Just make a petty smirk, throw a smug look at an attractive companion and say, “Cocaine … Right.” With enough “Cocaine … Right,” we can make cocaine wrong.

E-mail Lewis at ljl10@pitt.edu.