16.2 percent of those surveyed in the United States had tried cocaine at least once

World Health Organization study published in July of this year noted that 16.2 percent of those surveyed in the United States had tried cocaine at least once. The latest available research from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found cocaine use on the rise and noted that 70 percent of new "initiates" to cocaine "were aged 18 or older." In the Colombian magazine Semana, a recent interview with two female survivors of a paramilitary massacre described being taken to a nearby soccer field and made to watch as the members of their small town of El Salado were alternatively shot at close range or crudely hacked to death by large machetes. And at every death, of which there were sixty six, the paramilitaries, some of whom were said to be in a drugged stupor, banged drums. The members of the unit that committed this act have admitted their culpability but described the victims as "guerrillas." What does this have to do with the broad leafy expanses of our New England campus? Simply this, the paramilitaries, equally culpable Marxist guerrillas, the corrupt judges, bought politicians and systematic violence that plagues the Andean republic of Colombia is financed and supported by the sale of a chalky white powder, the end result of a complicated refining process of that well respected, hardy, native plant, coca. At every stage of its production and transportation from its habitat in the Andes to that great market that is the United States, this product steadily acquires a darker tincture as men and women found inconvenient to its sale and movement are permanently removed or silenced. Thus frictions in the market are lessened and profits made. The reason I write this is that statistics would say, though it is impossible to conclude with any certainty, that there are independent minded students and faculty on this campus that use cocaine. They may in their defense believe that they are merely acting out on a personal freedom that is long cherished in this country, that the harm done is merely to themselves, to their own body to which they are ultimately responsible. In fact it would be easy to say that at whatever price fluctuation, a gram of cocaine is the cheapest way to ensure the most misery across the widest swath of area. With one small exchange one can tingle a malevolent chain that stretches across hemispheres and bloodies by in large the poorest and the most deprived of the Americas. Progress, the miracle of globalization, and something to consider on a Saturday night.