Demerit+good-Cocaine

Basically, this article is about how buying cocaine helps funding guerrilla groups, the planting of illegal landmines, deforestation for coca plantations, kidnapping, and murder in Columbia. The article gives an example of Kate Moss; "When she snorted a line of cocaine, she put land mines in Columbia, she killed people in Colombia, she displaced people in Columbia, she helped finance kidnapping." The money raised from selling cocaine was used to continue the war, kidnapping, and bombing in Columbia. We can say that Cocaine is a demerit good since Columbia is producing so much just to continue the strife and it produces negative externalities, affecting the person who’s not involved in the buying or the selling. The ones who are kidnapped or killed in Columbia are the 3rd person; they are just affected even though they are not the buyer or the seller. Francisco Santos, the Vice-President of Colombia, advised the European governments to apply his "Cocaine Curse" campaign, which includes well-dressed "coke head" characters laying landmines and nursing guns, and place it on billboards and in nightclubs. Santos also launched his "Shared Responsibility" campaign in London which is “aimed at educating cocaine users that if they knew what their drug money was put to use to in Colombia -- funding guerrilla groups, the planting of illegal landmines, deforestation for coca plantations, kidnapping, murder -- they would stop using the drug.” Some people consider Santos’ campaign too naïve that “there are serious and deep rooted problems in the country that go way back before they had coke.” Britain’s ambassador, Keith Morris, stated that the campaign “failed to address the main cause of violence” and had too little impact.