A calculated risk
When you consider the risk of carrying cocaine in South America, it really isn’t worth it. Exactly 10 times cheeper than the product you get at home and enevitably better it is hard for tourists from richer countries not to indulge when presented with the chance.
The price of cocaine in South America is between $5 (2.70 GBP) and $20 (11 GBP) for one gram, compared to 50 GBP back in England. Supplied directly from the plantations of Colombia, the spiritual home of cocaine, it has been passed down through very few hands if you decide to purchase. Cut with little if nothing at all, what you get is near enough the real deal and better than anything at home.
The price, however, can be more than handing over the note, or any other long term mental effects the drug might have.
Supplied with millions of US dollars every year from the United States administration to keep the cocaine trade down to a minimum, the Ecuadorian police authorities stamp out drug trafficking to a near rediculous level. Often with random checks on tourists out on the street, there is no doubt who they target.
Caught with any amount is an instant jail sentence of up to 16 years. Often no trial for at least a year many tourists, including a BBC journalist Zoe Savage now sit in jail victims of a ruthless system which targets the vunerable.
The latter case study is particuarly tragic. A day before Zoe Savage was set to fly home having recorded a documentry on child poverty in Quito, cocaine was planted on her. Stopped at the airport by police with sniffer dogs, she was arrested and has now served half of an eight year jail sentence for a crime she never commited. Needless to say, the prisons in South America are not how you would imagine, and very often in women’s prison’s the guards blackmail the inmates in return for sex. As a result, many children are born inside the walls.
In addition inmates, regardless of crimes commited are put in together and allowed to walk around intimidating the weaker. Mrs Savage came face to face with a triple murderer, with the women having killed in cold blood her husband, a woman that he had been sleeping with and the unborn child inside her.
Savage’s story is an accurate reflection of how if caught, then don’t expect the same luxury of being put into the reletive luxurios surrondings of a magistrates court within 24 hours. It doesn’t happen here.
Perhaps nothing better would be to take a caculated risk, before taking the bate.
The price of cocaine in South America is between $5 (2.70 GBP) and $20 (11 GBP) for one gram, compared to 50 GBP back in England. Supplied directly from the plantations of Colombia, the spiritual home of cocaine, it has been passed down through very few hands if you decide to purchase. Cut with little if nothing at all, what you get is near enough the real deal and better than anything at home.
The price, however, can be more than handing over the note, or any other long term mental effects the drug might have.
Supplied with millions of US dollars every year from the United States administration to keep the cocaine trade down to a minimum, the Ecuadorian police authorities stamp out drug trafficking to a near rediculous level. Often with random checks on tourists out on the street, there is no doubt who they target.
Caught with any amount is an instant jail sentence of up to 16 years. Often no trial for at least a year many tourists, including a BBC journalist Zoe Savage now sit in jail victims of a ruthless system which targets the vunerable.
The latter case study is particuarly tragic. A day before Zoe Savage was set to fly home having recorded a documentry on child poverty in Quito, cocaine was planted on her. Stopped at the airport by police with sniffer dogs, she was arrested and has now served half of an eight year jail sentence for a crime she never commited. Needless to say, the prisons in South America are not how you would imagine, and very often in women’s prison’s the guards blackmail the inmates in return for sex. As a result, many children are born inside the walls.
In addition inmates, regardless of crimes commited are put in together and allowed to walk around intimidating the weaker. Mrs Savage came face to face with a triple murderer, with the women having killed in cold blood her husband, a woman that he had been sleeping with and the unborn child inside her.
Savage’s story is an accurate reflection of how if caught, then don’t expect the same luxury of being put into the reletive luxurios surrondings of a magistrates court within 24 hours. It doesn’t happen here.
Perhaps nothing better would be to take a caculated risk, before taking the bate.
posted by Tom Nicolson at 3:19 PM
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