Colombia Faces a New Problem: Too Much Cocaine

CANO CABRA, Colombia — For decades, one industry has sustained the small, remote Colombian village of Cano Cabra: cocaine.

Those who live in this community in the central part of the country rise early nearly every morning to pick coca leaf, scraping brittle branches, sometimes until their hands bleed. Later, they mix the leaves with gasoline and other chemicals to make chalky white bricks of coca paste.

But two years ago, the villagers said, something alarming happened: The drug traffickers who buy the coca paste and turn it into cocaine stopped showing up. Suddenly, people who were already poor had no income. Food became scarce. An exodus to other parts of Colombia in search of jobs followed. The town of 200 people shrunk to 40.

The same pattern was repeated again and again in communities across the country where coca is the only source of income.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/colombia-faces-problem-too-much-193258414.html

Have they talked to Don jr?