Colombia and the Illegal Drug Trade

The drug trade and terrorism are having a negative impact on all of Latin America. Firstly, the United States has tried to eradicate the drug trade in Latin America but their attempts failed terribly (http://www.cfr.org/). Secondly, The United States government tried to eradicate the drug trade in Colombia with some success, in that the drugs no longer come into the United States (http://www.colombiajournal.org/). Lastly, two very influential and diverse political groups are killing each other for money and political gain which are stopping economic growth (http://www.cnn.com/).

The United States tried to destroy the drug market but their plans did not go so well. Two guerilla armies, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (National Liberation Army) were and are not willing to let the United States destroy their drug market profits (http://www.cfr.org/). Why was the United States concerned? More than half of these illegal drugs were coming into the United States and were being sold to the United States citizens (http://www.cfr.org/)! The United States government was not happy about this, so they wanted to eradicate the drug market (http://www.cfr.org/). Because of this, Latin America’s economy suffered some untimely losses due to many of people only farming drugs that mostly went into the United States and the United States fought them and destroyed part of the drug market (http://www.cfr.org/). The drug farmers were angered by all their money and effort going to something that will not earn them anything in return. The farmers get paid back with un-laundered money which the drug lords cannot use, but the farmers cannot spend it because it is illegally earned (http://www.cfr.org/). With all the failure to launder money, billions of dollars get wasted a month (http://www.cfr.org/). This hurts the economy because that money could have been used to do things to help the people (http://www.cfr.org/). Instead, it hurts the people who are ingesting all these foul drugs because drugs are hazardous to them and everyone around them (http://www.cfr.org/).

The past few presidents of the United States (mostly George W. Bush and Bill Clinton) started “Plan Colombia” which was designed to keep the drug market out of the United States, and not very active in Latin America (http://www.colombiajournal.org/). This attempt has failed partly, adding to the war between two guerilla armies, the FARC, which is the biggest rebel group in Latin American history which has around 15,000 members, and the ELN which has around 5000 members. Now, the United States is mostly out of the war, but it is still going on in Latin America (http://www.colombiajournal.org/). The only thing that the United States government is trying to do is stop these drugs from entering the United States. They have succeeded for the most part, but some drugs are still bound to come in (http://www.colombiajournal.org/). Meanwhile, the guerillas are still fighting, and more and more people are dying every week. The United States government has invested billions dollars in this war, but all that has happened is the situation has gotten worse (http://www.colombiajournal.org/). The United States has just added to the war by killing many people and urging the guerillas to fight and now the war seems irreversible (http://www.colombiajournal.org/). The FARC and the ELN just keep fighting over who gets control of the drug market without regard to the United States’ attempts to intervene (http://www.colombiajournal.org/).