Blood Coke

Truer words rarely spoken:

The recent upsurge of coke trafficking in West Africa is bound to cause addiction and related health and social problems: another European curse on a continent already so dramatically damaged by centuries of colonialism, exploitation, slavery and racism.

At times I am perplexed and frustrated. Europeans now understand that they should not buy blood diamonds, or clothes made by slaves working in sweatshops. Extractive industries from around the world publish what they pay to local exporters as a way of preventing corruption. Major initiatives are in place to curb illicit trade in ivory, endangered species - even precious wood from illegal logging. The corporate world, reflecting public opinion, is showing a greater sense of social responsibility.

And yet with cocaine, the opposite occurs. Nobody makes movies about blood coke. Worse than that: models and socialites who wouldn't dare to wear a tiger fur coat, show no qualms about flaunting their cocaine use in public.

Look at Kate Moss who still receives lucrative contracts after she was photographed sniffing. Rock stars, like Amy Winehouse, become popular by singing I ain't going to rehab - even though she badly needed, and eventually sought, treatment. Gangster rappers and a popular genre of Latino music called Narco Corrido glamourize drug dealers as if they were modern day Robin Hoods. And while Britney Spears shouts Eat it! Lick it! Snort it! F*** it, paparazzi fill pages of fashion magazines, and TV crews film for the evening news. All these celebrity role models -- turned into junkies -- have in fact spent a lot of time in rehab lately, and their lives are a mess. Yet the entertainment industry laps it up, puts a gloss on it, and sells it to a voyeuristic public that is curious to watch the latest self-destruction of an actor, sports star or musician.

...

Even when they are high on drugs and their personal and professional lives are in turmoil, these role models reach an audience millions of times bigger than any drug czar, and have an impact far beyond the reach of UN drugs conventions, or esoteric academic publications. One song, one picture, one quote that makes cocaine look cool can undo millions of dollars worth of anti-drug education and prevention.

From a scan-worthy speech by the head of the UN's drug agency, Antonio Maria Costa. He points out how heroin is now seen in Europe (and abroad) as a drug for small-time losers who hang around bus stations (that's a paraphrase, but he says something like that) but cocaine is portrayed as the breakfast of champions.