The everlasting fight
against the cartel

When something persists, people adapt

The Drug War is a global campaign that aims to reduce the drug trade while also battling against government corruption.
The problem is that the actual abolition of drugs is not on everyone's interest: there are some entities that prefer the situation as it is.

Plata o Plomo

Our paper in the first pages narrated of stereotypical wars, with soldiers, territorial invasions etc.
In this case, however, we define this War as a Not-War: the battle itself is against an inanimate entity, which is protected by humans.

The media narration exploded with the advent of Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel: the Colombian drug lord monopolized the cocaine trade into the US in the 1980s and by his death he had an estimated net worth of $30 billion.
Its convictions were drug trade, assassinations, bombing, bribery, racketeering and murder.
However, like in any self-respecting criminal family, he needed the approval of the people to keep its monopoly: he sponsored social projects and charity to elevate its image.
He also helped in the constructions of houses, clinics, sport camps in the barrios for poor people, and this gave him one of his nicknames: Paisa Robin Hood.
Of course, this is nothing with respect to the circa 4,000 direct deaths he caused, including 600 police officers, and many other indirect deaths caused by the drug use.
In the end it was all about Plata o Plomo, silver or lead: given the magnitude of the Medellín Cartel and its allies (like Los Priscos), it's not that difficult to understand why many people chose plata and kept quiet.

Graffiti of Pablo Escobar surrounded by flowers

What Makes This a War

After his death and spectacularization with the tv series Narcos, we don't have a big name like Escobar to blame anymore, but his legacy lives in his successors.
Many people approve of his ways and plan on continuing his vision.

The world is still under the charming effect of narcotic substances, even more now that new drugs are being developed.
Unfortunately, since 2000 up to 2021, the death rate due to drug disorders doesn't seem to stop and it's instead increasing.

Poster about drugs

Operation Southern Spear

When this article was ideated, the news didn't talk much about the Drug War.
But, at the time this article was written, Donald Trump actuated the Operation Southern Spear and arrested Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, accusing him of being involved in drug trafficking.
Beside Maduro's dictatorial regime, Trump in fact kidnapped the head of another state, and pushed the narration of a perfect operation, with no American casualties.
However, the reality is different: there were multiple Venezuelan civilians deaths and 115 people were killed in the US strikes against boats that have been allegedly smuggling drugs into the USA: experts have also questioned the legality of those strikes.
In the end, this wasn't the perfect operation as it seemed, but Trump's motto seems to be "Better safe than sorry".
Does the end always justify the means?

Even if Trump's intention is to overthrow a dictatorial government and end the drug war, is it really his main objective?
Or is it the fact that Venezuela is the main producer of oil and petroleum of the world and it has strong relationships with Russia and China?
At the end, this Not-War behaves similarly as a normal War: the powerful ones take decisions without considering the people and there's always money as the main conductor.

Venezuelan and American flags splitted and aligned together
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