MARIJUANA

                                               - this is a picture of a harvest of marijuana

HISTORY OF MARIJUANA IN COLOMBIA...

• Marijuana has a long cultivation history in Colombia. 

• The story of how marijuana came to Colombia, or how the US-Colombian drug relationship started is said to have gone as follows: “some American traffickers traveled to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the near by Serraniz de Perija and supplied the peasants with seeds, financing, and technical assistance to begin production of marijuana.”

• This zone or area then became the largest producer of marijuana in Colombia and it exclusively supplied the US.

HOW THEY BEGAN EXPORTING MARIJUANA...

• Colombia didn’t start supplying marijuana to excess until the late 1960’s.

• The origin of the marijuana boom can be traced to a search by US consumers for a new supply source of marijuana.

• Soon money hungry Colombians seized the opportunity to make a lot of money in a stagnant economy by becoming marijuana exporters.

• The new Colombian drug lords soon took over the producing and distributing of the marijuana that was produced in Colombia. 

• This was the beginning of the Colombian participation in the trafficking of illegal drugs to the US and the rest of the world. 

  --here is a link that will help explain what marijuana does and where it is grown:

                            www.usdoj.gov/dea/concern/marijuana.htm

Thoumi, Francisco E. (1995).  Political Econonmy & Illegal Drugs in Colombia.  Colorado: Lynne Rienner

George, Susan (1992).  The Debt Boomerang.  San Francisco: Westview Press

Scott, Peter D. & Marshall, Johnathan  (1991).  Cocaine Politics.  Los Angeles: University of California Press

Gootenberg, Paul  (1999).  Cocaine; Global Histories.  New York: Routledge