Guinea-Bissau: The Cocaine Coast | Hacker News Reader

Guinea-Bissau: The Cocaine Coast

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17 pointsneilc12 comments

What's the big deal. The producers of the drugs are in South America, the consumers of the drugs are in Europe, and the transporters of the drugs are rarely from Guinea.

In west africa, people hardly consume any drugs at all, even the most hardened criminals stop at indian hemp.

Guinea is not a country ravaged by drug war at all, precisly becuase there is no effective police force, and the drugs are not consumed locally.

The people just fly in with their planes, do the transfer of drugs, and fly out. It's actually pretty peaceful.

If there is a problem that Africa does NOT have, it's drugs. Africans transport drugs, but they don't consume them, and as a result, there is very little drug related conflict in Africa.

The solution to what is described in the article is not to build armies on the islands of Guinea, but to simply increase security into Europe. The european market disappears, and the south americans will stop transporting through Africa.

Khat usage is ubiquitous in certain parts of Africa (e.g., Yemen and Somalia). It's not really in the same class as harder drugs though.

I've seen some reports that people grind up and smoke anti-retroviral medication for HIV (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7768059.stm), but I'm not sure how common that actually is.

Chat is about the same class as Marijuana.

Or, you know, get rid of the horrendously unsuccessful and hugely destructive policies of prohibition.

If you want to make the world a more dangerous place with more motivated and well-funded organized criminal forces: outlaw as many drugs as possible.

Drugs are not good things: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syhT3nTWFdI

And?

Are you a puritan preacher trying to minister to me?

The world is not a thing that can become perfect, nor is human society. You cannot eradicate vice. Attempts to do so, at least when it comes to drug use, have almost certainly led to far more human suffering than they are seeking to avoid.

The harshest drug I use personally is alcohol, but that doesn't keep me from recognizing sense and non-sense when I see it. Prohibition has led to a corruption of the criminal justice system, corruption of the police forces, para-militarization of the police forces, increasing distrust between the citizenry and the police, and massive empowerment and enrichment of organized crime and street gangs. These are not good things.

> If there is a problem that Africa does NOT have, it's drugs. Africans transport drugs, but they don't consume them, and as a result, there is very little drug related conflict in Africa.

Yet. Transit countries inevitably become user countries.

That's not true.

> If there is a problem that Africa does NOT have, it's drugs. Africans transport drugs, but they don't consume them.

I live in Europe, I have many Nigerian friends that are Cocaine users (nothing bad with that). They weren't consumer before they emigrate, but now, they are and when the go back to Nigeria they are keeping their habits.

So if there is a market there will be sellers sooner that later.

For all the griping we do in the West about corruption and inefficient government, I think we should all take a few seconds and be very thankful it (mostly) functions and our officials are (mostly) not corrupt.

I found that interesting to read! Thanks for posting it. Stories like that always make me glad I don't have to choose between eating and being honest. We take that for granted too much in First World countries.

Unreported World have a 25 minutes documentary about it.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/unreported-world/4od

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