Tag Archives: cocaine
My War on Drugs Rant
Posted on 20. Dec, 2011 by Colin.
SUMMARY: My War on Drugs rant condoning decriminalization.
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Killing Pablo: Summary and Review
Posted on 09. Nov, 2011 by Colin.
SUMMARY: My review and definitive post on cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.
From the jacket:
Here is the story of the brutal rise and fall of Colombian cocaine cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar, whose criminal empire held a nation of thirty million hostage – a reign of terror that would only end with Escobar’s death. In an intense, up-close account … Read more
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Plan Colombia: An Overview
Posted on 11. Oct, 2011 by Colin.
SUMMARY: Brief overview of Plan Colombia, the US-funded strategy to stabilize the country.
Plan Colombia was largely the brainchild of former Colombian president Andres Pastrana. The US has had a huge presence assisting Colombia since before Pablo Escobar, but Pastrana wanted to drastically increase the participation.
From the US embassy’s Plan Colombia page: Read more
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My 3rd Time Bribing Cops in Colombia
Posted on 23. May, 2011 by Colin.
SUMMARY: Short story on paying off some paisa cops who caught me with cocaine.
I spent the first weekend of May in Medellin. I stayed at my regular party hostel in Poblado. As soon as I arrived, barely an hour after landing, the gringo tourists were pushing aguardiente in my face. I started drinking. … Read more
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Lame-Ass Visit to Villa de Leyva
Posted on 17. May, 2011 by Colin.
SUMMARY: Misadventures with a paisa buddy in Villa de Leyva for Semana Santa.
Alternate Title: A Pure Paisa and Cocaine
Villa de Leyva is the preferred pueblo destination in Bogota. I’ve been hearing about this town ever since moving to Bogota, but never visited. It’s an affluent pueblo known for majestic natural beauty and charming architecture. It’s also known for its hallucinogenic mushrooms, which grow wild. There are many tourist sites to visit. I call my visit lame because I didn’t do any of that. I did absolutely NONE of the things Villa de Leyva’s known for. I didn’t even get my camera out. … Read more
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A Normal Night Out in Bogota
Posted on 17. Apr, 2011 by Colin.
SUMMARY: Typical night of drugs, sex, and debauchery in Bogota that normally wouldn’t get written about.
I recently got an email from a reader asking if my stories are 100% true or partly fictional. I was shocked because, despite how it seems, my life is dull. I have a good eye for what’s interesting and I write about that stuff, but it doesn’t seem to me so crazy someone would think I’m making it up. … Read more
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A Mick Reunion
Posted on 24. Nov, 2010 by Colin.
SUMMARY: I went on a bender with The Mick my first night back in Bogota. We drank Jameson, did coke, met crackheads, chased women. I accidentally smoked crack. I almost had to smack a hippie. We finished at Pechonorme’s with an unexpected guest.
Alternate Title: My 1st Night Back in Bogota
I arrived in Bogota Thursday night and the first thing I did was call up my good friend, The Mick. I brought him a Jameson gift box from America, the kind that comes with two branded glasses. … Read more
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My First Bender in Medellin
Posted on 15. Sep, 2010 by Colin.
SUMMARY: I spent my first weekend in Medellin with a couple Americans living there. Highlights include My 3rd Time Bribing Cops in Colombia FAIL and Envigado: Night of the Freak Shows.
Before coming back to St. Louis for the summer, I spent a weekend in Medellin. It was my first time outside Cundinamarca, the department of Bogota. Gringos and Colombians alike drool over Medellin. I got an invite from a reader, Zac, to crash on his couch. I was sold.
I flew in May 20 on no sleep from the night before. I realized what an asshole I was for wearing my leather jacket. Medellin’s not cold at all. To my dismay, Medellin proper is an hour away from the airport. I took a little bus through the mountains into the city. It dropped me off downtown near a metro station. … Read more
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Cocaine Cartels and Economics in Colombia
Posted on 13. May, 2010 by Colin.
SUMMARY: Overview taken from Michael Reid’s Forgotten Continent on the history of the cocaine industry in Colombia and its economic implications.
‘Lead or silver’
Enrique Low Murtra wanted nothing more than to leave his job as Colombia’s justice minister to open a law office and return to his previous career as a university teacher. ‘I would like to imagine that vengeance is not eternal. To be exiled, like Scipio, from one’s own country seems to me to be an injustice,’ he said. A gentle, avuncular man who had once been a supreme-court judge, he was still only 49. He spoke softly as the rain pattered down outside his office in a colonial mansion in Bogotá in March 1988. But he would indeed suffer exile – and worse. Two months earlier, on the instruction of Colombia’s president, Virgilio Barco, Low Murtra had signed warrants for the arrest and extradition to the United States on drugs charges of the five leading members of the ‘Medellín Cartel’. They included Pablo Escobar, perhaps the world’s most ruthless and notorious drug baron. Faced with constant death threats, the minister sent his daughter out of the country. ‘Even going for a haircut has become a problem,’ he said. So intense did the threats become that, in July 1988, Barco sent him to Switzerland as ambassador. That did not save him. In 1991, he was back in Colombia, working as he had hoped as a law professor at the University of La Salle. No longer in government service, he had no bodyguards. He was gunned down at the entrance to the university. … Read more
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A Shower of Cocaine and Shady Colombians
Posted on 18. Apr, 2010 by Colin.
SUMMARY: I got drunk and did cocaine with a couple shady people in a shady club.
Saturday night I went out drinking with an American guy, a Colombian-American girl, her boyfriend, and a few of her local cousins. We started drinking at Pola Rosa and then moved to Irish Pub. The girls wanted to dance so we went looking for a club.
We paid 10,000 pesos to go into a place offering an open bar, but they ran out of booze just as we got in. It was a hip hop scene packed with 18 year-olds. So we left. At the next club we danced and drank aguardiente. I was quite drunk so I don’t remember why we left the second club, but we found ourselves standing in the street. I somehow met a guy on the street named Silvio. He told us about a club that’s open late, so we all jumped into a taxi and went. Silvio plus our original group of 7.
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