Colombia’s Presidential Election May Affect U.S.

Alvaro Uribe plans on increasing Colombia’s military spending by $1 billion, thus doubling the size of the police force. The increase in spending is due to the civil unrest and guerilla warfare that has claimed thousands of lives annually in the South-American country. His efforts to handle the instability are promising, but Uribe has been accused in the past of having a connection with a known drug cartel, though the accusations never panned out.
Colombia is known for being a leading supplier of cocaine in the United States for decades. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, an estimated 500 pure metric tons of cocaine was produced in Colombia in 1999. This leaves many Americans wondering if the new Colombian President will direct some of the military spending toward cleaning up the cocaine production as well, for solving the worldwide drug problem will take supply- and demand reduction.
From 1988-1998 the United States spent between $39 and $77 billion annually on cocaine alone, with an estimated 4 million current hardcore cocaine users. The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) reported that adults 18 to 25 years old have a higher rate of current cocaine use than those in any other age group. Cocaine is one of the most addictive street drugs today.
Once having tried cocaine, an individual may have difficulty predicting or controlling the extent to which he or she will continue to use the drug. A tolerance to cocaine's high may develop as well, with many addicts reporting that they seek but fail to achieve the same experience as their first use of the drug. Some users will frequently increase their doses to intensify and prolong the effects. According to one former addict that turned his life around through the Narconon® Program, “I started snorting cocaine initially and told many people that I thought injecting the drug was gross. I told myself I’d never do that. Then only 2 years later I was injecting the drug all day every day with no regard for disease, overdose or anything.”
Use of cocaine in a binge, during which the drug is taken repeatedly and at increasingly high doses, leads to a state of increasing irritability, restlessness, and paranoia. This may result in a full-blown paranoid psychosis, in which the individual loses touch with reality and experiences auditory hallucinations. Cocaine also suppresses appetite, increases hear rate and strips out vital nutrients from the body, leaving behind residues of the drug that remain in the fatty tissue and cause intense drug cravings upon release back into the bloodstream.
“I remember being clean for two months and was driving to work one morning, claims another Narconon graduate named Joshuah, “and then I was doubled over with a stomach ache. I was sweating and shaking and couldn’t wait to get my hands on more cocaine.” Joshuah’s explanation is not an unusual story. There is, however, a drug-free method to get the old drug residues out of the body and eliminate the physical drug cravings. The Narconon® Program was developed by William Benitez and L. Ron Hubbard and is a new, proven approach to permanently ending addiction. The unique sauna detoxification method is the most comprehensive drug-free program in the world and achieves amazing results, in addition to the series of life-skills courses that comprise the remainder of the non-traditional program.

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