Drug info - small amounts of cocaine legal in Colombia??

[Sloop]

Swim wondered on the laws covering small lots of coke on ones person in Colombia and whether it was as a result of being legal in small personnel use amounts, the ideal destination for the holiday coke snorter (price and quality are the other main draw cards plus it is an incredibly beautiful country for the nature lover and admirer of the female form, perhaps male form too but that is not swims domain).

Well swim wonders if any of this boards community knows the real situation?

Swim remembers reading a small amount of coke and grass was legal in a past Lonely Planet Guide Book for Colombia but they still recommended being very discrete, if you were crazy enough to take drugs (seems a lot of their readers are crAZY), it was an unclear message on the legality in this guide and seemed to indicate that the police could be nasty or nice to tourists but didnt give a fuck about locals with 1 g for instance.

Within the recent news that Mexico almost crossed the line on allowing small quanities of coke (ie half g) and a whole cocktail of other drugs on ones person, swim noticed in the same news that Mexico was listed as the second country in Latin America to make a small quanity of coke and grass legal. Colombia was listed as first in recent history.

Swim has holidayed in Colombia in 2005 and had a ball in more ways than one and found the overwhelming media portrayal of the country to be not applicabe where swim visited (Carribean Coast), but at nightclubs where good coke (and probably some bad) was readily available, swims well meaning Colombian associates, whom he snorted with, said to keep the little coke bag handy so it gets tossed in a raid, though the nighclub staff will generally give you lots of warning! Well this didnt sit well with the supposed legal in small quanitiies status. Also in some small communities, that swim visited, the cops couldnt care less about a small quanitiy of grass or coca leaf but swims associates again warned him to take care with the Charlie and said it depended on the cops attitude in each place.

Anybody know the actual real situation legally? Swim doubts whether swim would ever face a court being always ready to bribe Latin American style, but in one town swim use to walk home from the local main dealer, a very respectable person with a nice bar, and with a few gs in his pocket swim use to walk past the local police depot on route to swims hotel (logistically only choice) and the police always said good night (it was a smaller town) and swim felt they knew where he had been and couldnt care less, as long as swim was behaving civilly and supporting local business etc.

However, it would be nice to know the actual legal situation, not that swim would be any less discrete, but further removing paranoia is a very good improvement to the coke snorter holiday experience dont you think!?

[powderhead55]

im not speaking from a legal standpoint, but i had a friend who i went to school with, was up here for highschool but other than that he lived in columbia his whole life, he told me dealers hang on corners and cops dont bother them for the most part, cocaine and MJ are just a part of life, as he put it.

[levdog]

Swim has been to columbia, the coke that you get from the locals and of the street dealers is, in fact, poorer quality than most of the coke in the U.S. or U.K. If swiy wanted to score high quality coke, he would have to know a propper dealer that dealt propper coke to tourists, and the coke would cost quite a bit more. But still be very much cheaper than in its destination coutries.

[Sloop]

Yes levdog, swim has found what you are saying is spot on, it is a bit off putting when the old joke in Colombia is that all the good coke gets sent for export, thats why we serve shit......

but swim also found that good contacts can be easily made with a little Spanish and time (probably not in tourist towns) and then you can get stuff that makes UK coke (even what the middle/upper? class are taking for their desert at parties) seem poor quality. and the price.... well i dont use coke in the UK for this reason of price (have no experience with coke in USA) but at the current prices in the UK and Europe...well it is just not worth it (the high is not that good!), and a flight to Colombia etc and a few weeks holdiay is cheaper than a weekend binge on coke in Europe/UK and all that goes with it. For it for it puts me into party mode and loosens the purse strings, so i would prefer to be in a place where a beer is $1 etc.
There are a lot of other reasons too not least the chicas

but swims original question relates to legality in Colombia, as swim finds swims coke highs can quickly slip into paranoia and knowing if worse comes to worse, ie swim gets busted and can't bribe swims way out, (touch wood this will never happen but one must face ones risks responsibly swim thinks) Anyway its not worth facing a long sentence getting swims ass plugged by a monster in hell.

[idr0p]

columbia is a crazy place if you plan on going dont get kidnapped.